Marie Antoinette
by Tinn Tam
Summary: AU.In a world where Voldemort has won the First War, marriages are broken and others are arranged in order to preserve the sacred purity of blood. James Potter is separated from Lily. Now they have to find another bride for him.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France.

The one everybody started respecting when they saw her standing on a filthy cart on her way to the guillotine, the 16th of October, on that year built with blood and tears that was the year 1793.

Before that day, before Fouquier-Tinville had sentenced her to death for being the King's wife – the King's widow –she was despised and hated. Only when she stood in front of the silent crowd, her head held high in spite of her dirty, ragged clothes and her blonde hair cut short so as not to get in the way of the blade, only then did they bow to their Queen's courage.

And thus was brutally ended the life of a frivolous and joyful woman, married too young to a man she hadn't chosen.

Many years have passed since the young Queen's death in 1793. But no matter the time or place, people should never call their child Marie-Antoinette. There is no happiness in this world for a girl called Marie-Antoinette.

My fate was sealed the 16th of October, 1983. One hundred and ninety years exactly after Queen Marie-Antoinette's death at the infamous Place de Grève.

°#°#°#°

"Mademoiselle de Syrnac!"

Madame Maxime's booming voice rang in the classroom, startling all of us. My best friend Aimée, who had collapsed on her desk and was sleeping soundly with her head in her arms, jumped so suddenly she fell off her seat in a heap of blue silk onto the floor.

All heads had turned to look at me. Madame Maxime, our gigantic Charms teacher and Deputy Headmistress of Beauxbâtons Academy, was waiting for me at the door with her brow furrowed. I rose, nervously smoothing my blue uniform, and joined her as whispers erupted all around me.

Admittedly, I wasn't usually one to draw attention to myself. I had reasonably good marks but I wasn't extraordinarily gifted in any subject. I didn't play on the Quidditch team, I was shy and a bit delicate, and I wasn't stunningly pretty. My name didn't come up often in conversations; therefore, hearing Madame Maxime literally shout it during a lesson of History of Magic was nothing short of shocking.

I followed her in the corridor, my anxiety and confusion growing when she told me we were going to the Headmaster's office.

"What… did I do… Madame?" I panted, as I jogged to keep up with her enormous steps.

"Nothing whatsoever, Marie-Antoinette, don't be nervous," she said.

Her answer did nothing to ease my apprehension, though; she sounded a bit worried, which was all the more unnerving since I was used to the aura of calm strength she usually displayed.

We reached the statue of the Penseur, a man sitting with his chin in his hand, in an attitude of thoughtfulness. I had passed by that statue countless times in the seven years of my time at Beauxbâtons, barely noticing it, and I was shocked – to say the least – when Madame Maxime stopped in front of the Penseur and asked him if Headmaster Tinville could see us immediately. The Penseur's head jerked upward to look at Maxime's towering figure; then he nodded and tiredly stood up to reveal a thin loophole in the wall behind him.

"Sorbet Citron", said Maxime in a bored voice.

The loophole widened immediately to become a broad door and let us in the corridor beyond.

And so I stepped, for the first time of my life, in the chamber of Beauxbâtons palace which was strictly reserved for the Headmaster.

°#°#°#°

Monsieur Tinville's office was a large square room, furnished with bookshelves – there seemed to be only that: bookshelves – loaded with what must have been all the books ever written since men had mastered the ability to write. The high windows on one side of the room offered an extraordinary view on the grounds, and on the other side a wide marble fireplace was set under a big mirror, so large the whole room was reflected in it.

Monsieur Tinville was seated behind his desk, and a stranger sat in an armchair in front of him. When he saw me, Tinville got to his feet and gestured in my direction.

"Mademoiselle de Syrnac…" he said, sounding somewhat nervous, "meet Rodolphus Lestrange."

Lestrange hadn't bothered to stand up when I had entered the room; he just turned his head to look at me, then motioned for me to come closer, which I did, tensing more at every step I took. Lestrange examined me from head to foot with a slight smirk. I squirmed uneasily under his negligent gaze, but neither he nor Tinville seemed to take notice of my embarrassment.

"Mr. Lestrange," Maxime's voice snapped from behind me, speaking English with a strong but oddly pleasant French accent, "perhaps you could greet Mademoiselle de Syrnac. She has a History of Magic lesson; she can't stay very long."

I felt a wave of relief and gratefulness as Lestrange's eyes briefly turned away from me to flash towards Maxime, his upper lip curling in what looked like disgust; nevertheless, he stood up and bowed his head to me.

"Mademoiselle," he drawled. "I am, as you may know already, the Minister for Magic in Great Britain. It is a pleasure to meet the only heir of such an ancient and respectable family."

His diction was perfectly clear and his English was pleasantly fluid to my French ears. I curtseyed lightly and muttered some commonplace polite sentence, wondering why on earth the British Minister for Magic had come to see me.

"Please take a seat, Mademoiselle," Tinville said curtly. He was speaking English too, with that horrible accent we made fun of every time we had the occasion.

I obeyed, still feeling Lestrange's eyes on me. Both men sat in their armchairs and Madame Maxime conjured a chair to sit with us.

"Mademoiselle, Mr Lestrange 'ere came to Beauxbâtons zis morning to see you," said Tinville solemnly.

I hid my increasing confusion behind an expression of polite interest. Tinville cleared his throat.

"You are aware, I'm sure, of ze… events of ze past years," he said slowly. "Ze recent disturbance in ze wizarding world. What do you know about it?"

I started fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. My natural shyness wasn't eased by my taking notice that, although I had fought off my smirk at Tinville's ridiculous pronunciation, Lestrange had not bothered to do the same; he was openly sneering every time Tinville spoke English, and I was scared he would make fun of _me_. I hated being ridiculous.

"Very little, I'm afraid," I stammered, my voice sounding horribly false and snobbish to my own ears – as it always did when I ventured a sentence in English. "There was a… war, wasn't it? Between the Headmaster of a British school –" I searched frantically around for the name of the school, and had to give up under Lestrange's contemptuous look "– and a wizard calling himself the Dark Lord. And the Dark Lord won the war about two years ago…"

My lamentable attempt at an explanation provoked a snort from Lestrange and a sigh from my Headmaster. Madame Maxime's hand found my shoulder and, to my utter astonishment, squeezed it gently. She was usually all but friendly with her students. The whole situation was so strange, I was actually wondering if I had fallen asleep in History of Magic and was having a weird dream.

"I suppose that sums it up quite right," Lestrange sneered, "if one can sum up the greatest victory of all times in two sentences. And of course, reducing the great battle the Dark Lord led against the filth and the mire of the wizarding world to a catfight between him and that fool Dumbledore, ex-Headmaster of _Hogwarts_ –" he articulated exaggeratedly the last word, smirking down at me "– is one of the most ridiculous shortcuts I've ever had the misfortune to hear."

"Why don't you enlighten all of us, Mr Lestrange?" Maxime barked. "Maybe we wouldn't be wasting so much time. Neither I nor Mademoiselle de Syrnac have all day to devote to hearing your insults."

I started at her outburst and hazarded a glance at her. Her nose was wrinkled in distaste and I could almost see the sparks flying from her black eyes.

Lestrange's cold eyes narrowed as he surveyed her with the same expression of utmost disgust I had seen on his face earlier.

"Perhaps we could talk more freely to Miss de Syrnac if we were _alone_," he said coldly, returning his gaze to Tinville with his eyebrows raised.

Tinville nodded and asked Madame Maxime to leave us, which she did after squeezing my shoulder again in a reassuring fashion. I felt sick and abandoned when I heard to door closing behind her. Lestrange, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief.

"Good," he said, fanning himself with his handkerchief. "Now I can breathe. I still can't understand why you are letting this half-breed pollute your school."

"She's a good teacher," said Tinville, his voice apologetic, "and she knows better zan anyone ze ways zis academy works. I 'ate ze administrative fings," he finished lamely. He probably intended to make himself sound like the intellectual one, incapable of taking an interest in material contingencies. Oh how I would have loved to snort at this.

Lestrange was now watching me – he was actually scrutinizing me, as a falcon would eye its prey – and I felt very much like a trembling rabbit about to be eaten.

"Mademoiselle," he said in his cold, drawling voice, "given your lame re-telling of the last war, I highly doubt you know the principles that motivated the Dark Lord's great actions. He was the first since the great Salazar Slytherin himself, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School, to openly claim purebloods' supremacy in the wizarding world. His words were not welcome to fools and Muggle-lovers such as Dumbledore, and the Ministry itself had dared classify the Dark Lord as a dangerous criminal. Now they have paid for this," he murmured, his eyes alight with fervour.

He gazed into space for a moment, a triumphant grin stretching his lips as if he was reliving delectable memories, before resuming:

"So the Dark Lord, tired of the wizarding community's perpetual refusal of hearing the most obvious truths, decided to force these truths upon them all. And he won. Dumbledore fled and is, in my opinion, more dead than alive. The Dark Lord is all mighty; now most of the European Ministries of Magic have bowed to his immense power.

"Of course, one of the first measures he took to ensure the preservation of the purity of blood was dissolving the marriages contracted between purebloods and people of lesser lineage. Now we're trying to establish a list of the young ladies that could make suitable brides, so that pureblood wizards can choose their wives more easily. This is a considerable opportunity for girls who would have no chance to get married soon otherwise. Now their lineage is the key to marriage. The Ministry is actually considering arranging a few marriages, so as to favour this new trend.

"This brings me to the offer I came to make you. I would like to set up your wedding."

In spite of all my self-control, I couldn't prevent my eyes from widening. This man was talking about my wedding – when I had never even _thought_ about getting married – as naturally as he would have suggested I should get tutored in Transfiguration. This was, to put it simply, the most grotesque thing I had ever heard.

"My wedding?" I blurted out. "I don't understand…"

"It is very simple, though," he snapped scornfully. "You are seventeen, heir of a prestigious family – but you possess nothing other than a famous name since your family was ruined three years ago. You are an orphan and your only relative is your uncle, who is also your legal guardian. I have already seen him and he has totally agreed on every point we discussed: he told me you were fragile, delicate and used to luxury. How did you expect to make a living once you're out of school?"

I stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds. I was still stunned at his proposal, and now I was also hurt to hear what my uncle had told Lestrange. The poor man cared for me, but once he was drunk he would tell anything that was suggested to him. And I knew he was greedy; the loss of my family's fortune – already considerably lessened by my father, an adventurer whose dangerous whims had caused his and my mother's deaths – was mainly due to his preposterous investments in ridiculously complicated industrial plans.

I finally summoned my courage to answer Lestrange's question.

"I intended to teach," I said in a low voice.

He snorted again. "Are her grades exceptional?" he asked sharply, turning to Tinville.

"Zey are decent enough, but noffing more," answered the Headmaster. I hated him for that sentence.

"And her socializing abilities, that we all knew are _fundamental_ in the tedious task of teaching?" Lestrange went on, a smirk stretching his lips.

"Reduced to ze bare minimum," Tinville answered, pushing me a little deeper in the grave I had dug for myself with one sentence. "She 'as one friend and doesn't mix up wiz ze ozer students."

I managed to keep a straight face, even though I was so ashamed I wanted more than anything else to crawl into a hole and never come out of it again. But if my mother had ever taught me anything, it was to never show my emotions to anyone. They were a weakness. I may have been the heir of a ruined family; it didn't mean I could stop acting as if I was no longer part of the old French nobility.

Lestrange spun his armchair around to face me again, still smirking.

"I don't think we need to elaborate," he said viciously. "It seems that the only way you can continue enjoying the way of life you've become accustomed to, is to marry a wealthy man. Which is exactly what I'm offering. I can't see why you would push that away. Unless… Are you a romantic girl, Mademoiselle?"

"No," I answered, which was true. My best friend Aimée was romantic enough for the two of us; all she was talking about was true love.

"Then I don't see the problem," Lestrange concluded smoothly. "It's only a benefit for you."

"And what is your benefit in that, if I may ask?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "There there, Miss de Syrnac," he said in an unctuous voice. "Since when do young ladies think a man seeks his own benefit when he just cares about their future?"

I kept quiet this time, inwardly cursing my stupidity. As if he was going to tell me just because I had asked him.

He rose and extended his hand for the Headmaster to shake. "I shall arrange Mademoiselle de Syrnac's trip to London and her wedding," he said curtly. "I will send you the details."

"Who is the man you want me to marry?" I said quickly before he had the time to say his farewell.

He slowly turned to me, enveloping me in a gaze that was almost appraising.

"You don't know him," he said quietly at last. "He's the young heir of one of the most ancient magic families of Great Britain. His family may not be exactly as ancient as yours, but –" he gave a cruel smile "– they were wiser than yours in managing the family inheritance."

"His name?" I pressed on. "If I may venture such a request?" I added softly, as any well-bred girl would have said.

His smile widened as he heard such solemn and pompous words coming from a seventeen-year-old.

"James Potter," he said, letting the name negligently fall from his thin, aristocratic lips. The name hung in the air between us and echoed in my ears. A shiver ran across my spine as I realised that name was about to become mine.

Having nothing left to tell me, Lestrange wheeled around and walked up to the fireplace. He reached towards a silver bowl on the heavy marble mantelpiece and took a fistful of glistening Floo Powder. Throwing it in the fireplace, he stepped in the emerald-green flames and shouted: "Ministry of Magic, Great Britain!"

And then he was gone.

I stared absentmindedly after him for a few seconds. I felt sick again. Then I turned to Tinville.

"Can I go now, sir?" I said timidly.

He glared at me before answering.

"I expected you to behave better than this, Mademoiselle. What were you thinking, questioning such an important man's decision? You nearly embarrassed me. I will not punish you today for your cheek, but I would advise you to watch your mouth from now on. For once, I forbid you to reveal anything that happened here to anybody. Including Mademoiselle Aimée Solange. This is a secret negotiation between our country and the United Kingdom; the marriage we've been discussing is key to the negotiation. I feel proud of helping to seek an alliance with the new government of Great Britain. You should feel proud as well."

I nodded numbly, unable to think of an answer.

"Now you may go," he said irritably, dismissing me with a wave of the hand.

I left Tinville's office in a sort of daze. When I thought back about the way Tinville had done nothing to save me from the fate Lestrange and his Dark Lord had sealed for me – how he had actually pushed me in the arms of that Potter – I reflected on how, no matter the time and place, men called Tinville were condemning girls called Marie-Antoinette, on the 16th of October.

I was a quiet, shy girl. Why did this happen to me?

And I didn't even know what James Potter looked like.

James Potter. His name seemed to ring in every sound I heard. The wind hissing in the chimneys moaned James Potter's name. The thundering footsteps of hundreds of students chanted James Potter's name. The rain that soon splattered the high windows chuckled out James Potter's name. And even in the pounding of my heart against my ribs, I could hear James Potter's name.


	2. Adieux and Exile

**Chapter One: Adieux and exile **

"I can't believe you're leaving me all alone here," Aimée whined for the umpteenth time. "What happened that's so important you need to go to England in the middle of the term, anyway?"

"Yeah, I've been wondering as well," piped up Mélanie, another one of my dorm mates who was writing a Transfiguration essay, lying on her stomach on the carpet. "Nothing ever happens to you, and suddenly you're off to see Tinville in the middle of a lesson, you receive _loads_ of letters, and next thing we know you're leaving to spend a whole week in London. _London!_" she sighed dreamily.

I paused in the act of slamming the lid of my suitcase shut. I wasn't to take my trunk with me at once — it would have looked too suspicious, according to Tinville.

"I told the pair of you at least a thousand times," I said patiently. "That's a bit of a secret."

Aimée scoffed. "I'm your best friend, and you're keeping things from me?"

"That's not my decision," I said wearily.

I sat on my bed next to Aimée, who was sprawled across it, her childlike face hidden behind a romance novel. I doubted she was actually reading it: she hadn't turned a page for the past half an hour.

"Look," I said gently, hesitantly laying my hand on her wrist. "I hate having to keep things from you, but I don't have a choice. As soon as I'm at London, I'll write a letter explaining everything. Okay?"

Aimée shrugged and pretended to be very absorbed in her novel. I bit my lip. For the first time since my conversation with Lestrange, I felt on the verge of tears. I was leaving the following morning, which meant I was enjoying my last moments with my best friend — and she was angry at me.

Mélanie, who had been counting the lines in her essay under her breath, suddenly exclaimed:

"Ninety-seven lines! I can't believe it! Why does this freak want one hundred and fifty lines, anyway? He's _so_ going to make fun of me again… 'Well, Mademoiselle Dinat, we had a little writer's cramp, didn't we? The third in a week? You should train your hand more. What about writing a few lines for me tonight at eight o' clock?'" She put on a grotesque grimace as she imitated our Transfiguration teacher's nasal voice. "Oh, what the hell, I'll write a conclusion, it should do the trick."

"You already wrote one," I pointed out mechanically.

"I don't see the problem," said Mélanie with mild surprise. "A conclusion is already pointless in itself. You're just repeating all over again what you already explained over three sodding pages. So why not do it once more? Jamais deux sans trois!"

She contemplated her essay for a few seconds with a thoughtful expression.

"Oh, I'm too tired, I'll do it tomorrow morning," she decided brusquely. "Now I'm hungry. Time to get down to the kitchens!"

And with that announcement, she got to her feet and stepped over her essay, still spread on the carpet, in order to get to the door.

The door slammed shut behind Mélanie. Aimée's face was still hidden behind her book.

"Aimée?" I said tentatively.

She stayed silent and unmoving for ten long, painful seconds.

Then suddenly she threw her book aside and flung her arms around me, drawing me in a fierce hug that took me completely unawares. I didn't really know how to react at first; I had never liked being hugged tightly, except by my boyfriend Olivier, and even then I'd rather be alone with him. It made me uncomfortable. But I was moved by Aimée's spontaneous embrace, and after a slight hesitation I awkwardly hugged her back.

"I don't want to lose you," she whispered in my ear, in a strangled voice. "And don't tell me you're only leaving for a week. I saw how you've been acting since Maxime pulled you out of History of Magic last week. You keep looking all around you, as if you wanted to enjoy the time you're spending in that castle as much as possible; you're being nice to everybody — even to that bitch Alice Brocard, who can't stand you because you've got a particle in your name…"

"I didn't expect you to be fooled," I murmured back, smiling as I held her tightly. "We've known each other for far too long. I'm leaving for good, that's true, and I'll miss you, Maxime, Beauxbâtons, and even Alice."

I gently pulled away and looked into her tear-filled, honey-coloured eyes. "Though you won't ever hear me saying I'll miss that excuse for a human being we have for a Headmaster," I added.

She chuckled appreciatively as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Ah well," she sighed, "we can always owl each other."

"Every week," I agreed, my face breaking into a wide grin.

"And I'll come to see you for the holidays," she went on, her face lightening up as it always did whenever she started to make plans. "We'll spend Christmas and Easter together. And right after I've graduated, I'll go and permanently settle at London, so that you're not alone in that country…"

I laughed at the disgusted expression that had twisted her facial features when she had said "that country".

"What's wrong with Great Britain?"

She rolled her eyes as if my question was stupid, then swiftly got to her feet. Standing on my bed with her arms spread wide, she roared with a fake Gascon accent:

"All right! If that's what you want, let us leave our bones in that wretched country, where it's always cold, where a fine weather is more like fog, fog like rain, and rain like deluge; where the sun looks like the moon, and the moon like a white cheese. After all, dying there or anywhere else, since we have to die anyway, who cares!"

And she put the finishing touches to her little act by taking off an imaginary feathery hat and bowing in a broad and martial gesture.

"Alexandre Dumas?" I asked, still laughing, and impressed by Aimée's flawless recitation.

"The one and only," grinned Aimée as she plopped herself down on the bed again. "_Twenty Years Later_, second book of the _Musketeers _trilogy."

We talked for at least two hours, about Maxime, Tinville, Beauxbâtons, our classmates, Aimée's books, anything but my departure. I felt safe and warm, chatting and laughing with Aimée — the most sensitive, caring, childish and romantic girl I had ever known. My last hours as a schoolgirl.

Mélanie came back with her arms overloaded with all sorts of food, from roasted chicken to chocolate éclairs. That girl was always eating the strangest things — and in the most disgusting way, I might add. The mere sight was making me feel faintly sick.

"Want some, Toine?" she asked through a mouthful of éclair, the result being a rather impressive spitting of crumbs.

"No thanks, Mélanie," Aimée answered for me. "Actually it would be great if you just — ate that somewhere else. Preferably far away from here."

"Ooh, yeah, I for'ot, I faw y'r boyffffend," Mélanie went on after cramming another éclair in her mouth, obviously totally unfazed by Aimée's comment. Aimée emitted a disgusted noise and hid behind her book again.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," I said.

Mélanie swallowed hard and obligingly repeated:

"I saw your boyfriend on the third floor, in the Battlefield Hall. Said he wanted to talk to you before you leave tomorrow."

Aimée slowly lowered her book and gazed at me with wide, horrified eyes. I was speechless myself. I had avoided thinking about Olivier lately; the mere thought of having to say goodbye to him was making things ten times worse. But I had to see him. I had to tell him I wasn't leaving only for a week. I couldn't just write him a letter afterwards, telling him I was getting married…

I stood up.

"I'll be back soon," I said in a toneless voice.

Aimée nodded, looking very apprehensive now. "I'll wait for you," she whispered.

"Be careful on your way down," Mélanie called as I walked out. "Maxime and the prefects are patrolling!"

I waved to thank her and left.

The large corridor was deserted; the gracious, curvy women lazily stretched out in the immense classical paintings lining the wall lifted their heads in a doleful gesture, watching as I ran past them in my blue dressing gown. One of them, a nymph who was dipping her feet in a greenish pond, shot at me idly:

"You're going to be all hot and sweaty if you go on like that!"

I smiled at her automatically and addressed her with a non-committal wave of the hand, before leaving the Naiad Corridor and turning left into the Battlefield Hall.

The Battlefield Hall was a huge, high-ceilinged room, with one wall pierced with five wide and high windows through which one could see the whole grounds of Beauxbâtons. On the opposite wall hung a single painting that took up all the available room. The painting showed hundreds of knights, horses and standards, in a colourful and oddly harmonious jumble. Swords were drawn, spears were pointed at the enemies' throats, arrows flew high in the blue sky and the wind swept the standards around.

I stayed rooted to the spot, transfixed by this formidable sight. It wasn't everyday the students passing by this painting could witness an actual battle; usually the two armies faced each other, threatening but unmoving, or the knights were merely sitting and talking in their camp while a few generals mounted on beautiful horses parleyed in the middle of the windswept battlefield. It was only my third battle, and I was in my final year.

"Impressive, isn't it?" a voice murmured behind me.

I spun around to find myself face to face with Olivier, my boyfriend for a month now. He was smiling down at me from the top of his tall, broad-shouldered frame, his grey-green eyes fixed on my face, displaying his usual kindness — and something else I couldn't place.

"Hi," I said, circling his head with my arms and briefly leaning my forehead against his cheek. "I haven't seen you in a long time."

"And you were going to leave tomorrow without saying goodbye?"

I could hear the grin in his voice. I would never do that, and he knew it. I wasn't a complicated girl, and he had learnt everything about me very quickly when we first became friends, about a year ago. According to Aimée, he had been in love with me from the moment he had first laid eyes on me – I highly doubted that – and he had needed a year to summon enough courage to ask me out. She also said we were the cutest couple in Beauxbâtons; and she added most of the time that she was full of admiration for me, for having "a guy so infuriatingly even-tempered" for a boyfriend.

My face darkened as I realised I soon wouldn't be allowed to think about him as my boyfriend again.

"What's wrong, Marie-Antoinette?" Olivier asked with concern, pulling me out of my reverie. He always used my full first name — contrary to Aimée, who was resolutely calling me 'Toine', or even worse 'Toinette'.

I shook my head, stepping out of his embrace. "We have to stop all this," I said.

"All what?" A puzzled expression had replaced the soft tenderness in his eyes.

"I can't be with you anymore." I was speaking in a very low voice, so that he wouldn't hear the tears that were already altering it.

He blinked, trying to take in what I had just said.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked slowly, his eyes full of incomprehension and confusion.

"No, it's not you," I said quickly. "It's — I'm leaving for good tomorrow. I won't come back from London. That's not my decision, I have to. I'm engaged."

The last word reverberated in the room and echoed on the walls. It was the first time I had said it aloud, and somehow the thing seemed so much more real… I felt like a trap was closing upon me. I turned away from him to wipe my eyes with my sleeve, but his hand clenched on my forearm and wheeled me around so that I was facing him again.

"You're engaged?" he repeated blankly. "To whom?"

I shook my head, shutting my eyes tightly for a second as a name rang in my ears – the same name that had haunted my days and my nights for a week now.

"Never mind that," I answered. I couldn't bring myself to say _his_ name aloud. "I should never have told you, it was supposed to be a secret… But I could hardly leave without giving you an explanation, could I? And I didn't want to explain it later in a letter."

His grip on my arm relaxed and the light in his eyes seemed to go off.

"You – I – That's not…" he stammered. He looked as if he was struggling to get a grip on himself.

The minutes that followed stretched like an invisible wall between us, long, implacable, full of pregnant silence.

"I'm glad you told me now, rather than in a letter," Olivier said in a blank voice, his eyes lost in space somewhere over my right shoulder, as if he wasn't really aware of what he was saying. "I'd never have thought…"

He didn't finish his sentence and just helplessly shook his head. There was a lump in my throat and tears were threatening to spill out of my eyes again. I blinked them back.

"I guess you should leave me now, then," he finally said in a low voice. "You don't want to be caught and told off for your last night here."

I nodded. "I wish we could have spent more time together," I managed to whisper through a constricted throat.

Olivier and I were in two different Clans — there were three Clans at Beauxbâtons, named after the three magical tribes that had signed a treaty of peace in the place where the castle now stood; he was a Franc, and I was a Celt. We didn't have the same lessons at the same times.

He sighed. "Yeah, well, what good does it do?" he said, sounding bitter for the first time. "I obviously wish so, too. But we can't, so it's no use whining about it now!"

I started and reflexively pulled my hand out of his, shocked and a little scared by his uncharacteristically harsh tone. He was repeatedly blinking, too, as he breathed deeply in an attempt to calm down. He finally met my eyes again.

"You should go, Marie-Antoinette," he murmured, his voice tired and defeated. "You'll only hurt the pair of us further if you stay here."

I bit my lip and turned on my heel, not trusting myself to say another word. I had only taken two steps towards the door when his hand came to rest on my shoulder; I froze, surprised by the unexpected contact, and he gently spun me around again. I didn't have the time to see what was coming – suddenly he was kissing me. His kiss was soft and warm, tender and hesitant. I sighed as I leant into him, forgetting everything, everyone, merely enjoying the softness of his lips against mine.

And then it was suddenly over. He leant his forehead against mine, his hand holding my face as his thumb stroked my cheek.

"I couldn't let you go without having kissed you one last time," he whispered in my ear. "Now I can tell you goodbye. Take care of yourself…"

And he turned away from me and strode across Battlefield Hall, until he reached a small door pretending to be a section of the wall, and he disappeared in the passageway beyond.

I never knew how I managed to get back to the dormitory. Aimée was kneeling on my bed when I arrived, waiting for me, just as she had promised. I joined her on the bed, kicked off my slippers and got rid of my dressing gown, before sliding under the sheets. Aimée moved to make room for me.

"How did it go?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"As fine as a breaking up can go, I guess," I answered, my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Aimée took my hand in hers and squeezed it hard. After a few silent minutes, she bid me goodnight and got to her feet. I distractedly listened as she fumbled with her drawers and got into her bed; when the ruffling of sheets stopped I pointed my wand at the candle-filled chandelier and the candles went off with a slight hissing sound.

I then turned on my stomach and buried my head in my pillow, muffling the sobs that were now shaking my whole body. It was the first time I had cried since my visit to Tinville's office, the 16th of October. Crying was pointless, but I would allow myself one last night to cry – one last night to mourn for my lost childhood.

* * *

I hardly remember anything of the trip to Paris, where I was to meet Mr. Lestrange. I remember the warm and stuffy darkness of a Beauxbâtons carriage, pulled by four winged horses. I remember Madame Maxime's large opal-covered hand, gently patting my shoulder from time to time. I remember a patch of pale, watery-blue sky visible through a square window. I remember the soft fragrance diffused by a little bag made of colourful material, full of dried lavender; a small gift from Aimée.

I don't recall thinking of anything or anyone in particular. I gazed into space, my face dry and my usual placid expression hiding the dark emptiness I felt. I may have slept the whole time for all I know.

The carriage abruptly began to go down, startling me out of my stupor.

"We're going to land," Madame Maxime murmured in my ear. "Any time now. Are you feeling all right?"

"Yes," I replied, in a voice that didn't sound much like my own.

Madame Maxime huffed. "You ought to be admired, then," she grumbled. "I have never heard of such a ridiculous arrangement. Now I'm no longer your teacher, I can guiltlessly tell you I'm convinced that Monsieur Tinville's fear of losing his position as Headmaster of Beauxbâtons made him lose what little intelligence he was born with! Arranged marriages! Was that Lestrange informed that this was the twentieth century?"

I smiled faintly at this, but my heart had sunk in my chest when she had said she was no longer my teacher.

"I wish I could still be your pupil," I ventured timidly, looking up at her handsome face with hesitation.

She looked back at me, her large dark eyes full with such sorrow that a lump came in my throat and my eyes started to sting.

"My dear child," she said, and her voice quavered on the last word. "I won't be anybody's teacher, you know. Monsieur Tinville has made it clear he doesn't wish me to teach in _his_ school anymore. So I am leaving as well."

She sighed, causing my hair to flutter around my face. Her voice recovered some of the usual vigour and determination I was used to hearing as she went on:

"It's not so bad, really. I couldn't stand taking any order from that half-dwarf anyway. I'm just worried about what may become of my pupils. I shudder to think about the supply Tinville will dig up to replace me. Poor children!"

I blinked hard and swallowed to get rid of the painful lump in my throat. The Academy of Beauxbâtons without Madame Maxime… It was unimaginable. I wouldn't have been surprised if the school soon crumbled to ash since she wasn't there to support it anymore, since her tall silhouette was never to be seen again, pacing up and down the corridors, bestowing in her wake quiet and tidiness. My whole world was, in fact, collapsing before my very eyes.

The hooves of the horses hit a stone surface with a noise like thunder; the carriage ran on a smooth floor for a few meters before coming to a halt, the high wheels wailing as the Braking Spells went off.

The carriage gave a final lurch before stopping completely. The fragrance of lavender came suddenly to my nostrils, much stronger than before, and I became aware I was squeezing the little bag so hard my knuckles were white. I stuffed the bag in my pocket with a trembling hand; at the same time, the door opened with a grating noise and the sunlight flowed in the dark carriage, dazzling me.

Madame Maxime seized my arm and gently pulled on it. I obediently got up, gripping my suitcase, and stepped out of the carriage.

An otherworldly sight greeted me. I was standing on what looked like the square, flat stone roof of a monument, at least fifty meters above the ground, in the middle of an immense square. From the monument descended broad avenues, forming a sort of star of which I was the centre.

"La Place de l'Etoile," said Madame Maxime as an answer to my puzzled look.

My eyes widened.

"Does that mean we landed on top of the _Arc de Triomphe_?" I asked, not daring to believe my eyes. "In the middle of Paris? What if we're seen by Muggles?"

"There are no Muggles in Europe anymore, Mademoiselle de Syrnac," drawled a horribly familiar voice behind me. "The Dark Lord took care of that."

I wheeled around and found myself face to face with Rodolphus Lestrange. Beside him stood a man I knew from seeing his picture in the newspaper: he was Lionel Draconnier, the French Minister for Magic, who had been elected only two weeks ago.

He opened his mouth to speak to me, when Maxime's voice rang loudly, a good distance over my head:

"He _took care of that!_ What on earth does this mean?"

Lestrange's eyes narrowed and he surveyed her with a slight grimace of disgust—and it was an opportunity for me to notice he was one of these men with the ability to look down upon people far taller than themselves.

"Draconnier," he said with the air of someone breathing into a foul smell, "would you please tell the half-bred that the ways and means used to build alliances with the Dark Lord are not to be explained to lesser citizens?"

"You killed them all?" boomed Maxime. "In one night? No one knows?"

"Oh, they live," Lestrange murmured, his eyes glinting in the feeble light of the morning. "They still live, at their rightful place. No one is to know where."

Maxime was shocked into indignant silence. I felt very cold, standing there on the windswept monument, in the deserted city.

"Mademoiselle," said the French Minister, pulling us all out of our thoughts. "I'm very happy to meet the young lady who has the privilege to seal the alliance between our Ministry and the Ministry of Great Britain."

Taken unawares, I answered some platitude, a mechanic smile on my lips as I smoothed down my blue robes – a nervous habit. While I was talking to the French Minister, I could feel Lestrange's eyes on me, following every gesture of my hands, every word forming on my lips. I was foolish enough to hazard a glance in his direction, and his eyes met mine.

His gaze chilled my blood. His irises were grey-green, a shade that strongly reminded me of Olivier's eyes, but the resemblance ended there. Lestrange's eyes were narrowed and piercing, and the smile that crept up his face when he caught me looking at him, instead of lightening up his aristocratic features, seemed to darken them even more. There was something carnivorous about that smile.

I had never known fear before that moment. I had known anxiety, apprehension, and dread sometimes. But that day, standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe in the centre of the star formed by the convergent avenues of Paris, I knew fear – the fear that encases the heart in a coating of ice and leaves you trembling and paralyzed, unable to move, unable to think. I was terrified by that man.

And the worst was that he knew it.

I had long forgotten what the Minister was babbling about, when Lestrange lazily cut across him.

"We should be going, Draconnier, I don't want to spend more time than necessary on top of that Muggle-built thing. Miss de Syrnac," he added, and his brisk voice softened to a sickly honeyed tone when he turned to look at me, "I'm going to send your suitcase to your hotel, then we'll be Apparating. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

As Lestrange bent over my suitcase, I turned to Madame Maxime. But I didn't even have the time to open my mouth to say goodbye – in a flash of light my suitcase had disappeared, and suddenly I could feel Lestrange's breath on my neck. A second later he had grabbed my arm.

"I'm guiding you," he whispered in my ear; I shuddered, horrified to find him so close to me. A second before Lestrange made me Apparate, I met Madame Maxime's eyes – and I knew, from the worried expression that fleetingly passed across her face, that she had seen the fear in my eyes.

Iron bands enclosed around my body, squeezing it tightly until I couldn't breathe, and Paris disappeared as I was forced into oppressing darkness. Then there was a loud crack and the darkness was abruptly lifted to be replaced by a dazzling light. I swayed a little, dazed by my inexperienced Apparition, but I quickly regained my composure when I felt Lestrange's grip tightening on my arm. I had to bite back a cry of pain; I would surely get a bruise.

Lestrange was already dragging me along; we had Apparated in the middle of a large and sumptuous reception hall, heavily decorated with gildings and crimson velvet hangings. Wizards and witches richly dressed in robes of all colours, embroidered with silver or gold, were coming and going with expressions of self-importance. My uniform of blue silk looked very humble, almost poor, in that display of riches.

Lestrange stopped in front of a reception desk just as luxuriously decorated as the rest of the hall. A witch, wearing black robes with a silver braid at the collar and sleeves, was nervously consulting a huge leather-bound register and didn't look up until Lestrange slammed his fist onto her desk. She jumped in shock and went paper-white at the sight of us.

"Minister!" she squeaked. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were coming, I –"

"Quiet, half-blood!" snarled Lestrange.

The poor girl went from deadly pale to a shade of crimson matching the hangings; she bowed her head in an attitude of humble listening.

"Here is Miss de Syrnac," Lestrange went on coldly. "You will lead her to her room. My brother will be coming shortly to fetch her."

He ignored the receptionist's vague mumbles of consent and turned to me again.

"I want you to shower and put on something nice," he ordered. "In about two hours, you'll meet Mr. Potter at the Ministry. You don't want to look as if you were just out of your classroom."

His scornful gaze trailed down my blue uniform as he said those words. I felt a flush creeping in my cheeks and neck but all I said was:

"Yes sir. You can let go of me now."

He blinked and released my arm. I didn't let a wince of pain alter my features as the blood rushed back to my numb fingers. I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.

He merely shrugged, supremely unconcerned, and raised his hand to his hat as a goodbye. I curtseyed in answer; when I looked up again, he had already Disapparated.

I was still staring at the spot he had been a few seconds before, when I heard the receptionist's tearful voice behind me.

"Miss, shall I show you to your room?"

* * *

I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, combing my long light-brown hair; my eyes were closed and I was just savouring the feeling of the silky locks sliding between the teeth of the comb. When I couldn't find a single knot, I gathered my hair with both hands at the back of my head and started making a plait. I finally tied the end of it with an old blue ribbon, so worn out it was white in places. I looked fourteen with my quiet plait hanging down my back. I lifted the plait and placed it round my head, in an old-fashioned hairdo I had always liked in the pictures in my mother's book of fairy tales.

I watched my hair with satisfaction. Not a single hair was escaping the tight plait. Suddenly I looked much older.

There was a knock on the door and when I called "Come in!" it opened very slightly and the half-blood receptionist peered into the room.

"Miss? Mr. Lestrange is downstairs."

My stomach turned and I had to swallow hard to get rid of the lump that had come all of sudden into my throat.

"I'm coming," I said in a would-be detached voice. "Just give me a minute."

The receptionist didn't look happy to have to tell Lestrange's brother to wait, but she withdrew from the room and shut the door nonetheless.

I closed my eyes and leant forwards, resting my forehead on the cool mirror. I was forcing myself to take deep, soothing breaths. I opened my eyes and stared at my hands, which were gripping very tightly the edge of the porcelain sink. I watched them, wanting them to relax; _forcing _them to relax.

Ten seconds later I was walking down the stairs to meet Mr. Lestrange in the reception hall.

He was impatiently pacing at the bottom of the stairs. He looked a lot like his brother, but his face was strangely lacking in the cold haughtiness the Minister had always shown. When he heard me coming down, he raised his head sharply and scanned me from head to foot with narrowed eyes.

"I thought Rodolphus had told you to put on something nice," he said brusquely. "_Not_ your uniform."

I stiffened immediately. I didn't like being addressed so brutally, but then, I could handle blatant rudeness much better than Rodolphus Lestrange's icy politeness.

"As your brother has kindly pointed out several times," I answered with forced calmness, "my family isn't exactly well-off; this outfit is really the best I have, and if you're not pleased by it I suggest I should –"

"Enough formalities," grunted Lestrange. He seized me roughly by the elbow and dragged me to the main entry of the hotel, at the exact spot where his brother and I had Apparated earlier.

"We're Apparating directly in the Atrium," he barked.

I didn't even bother to nod; he didn't seem to be expecting an answer either, anyway. A moment later, we had both Disapparated.

_Crack!_

I stumbled as we Apparated in the Atrium. I caught a glimpse of a peacock blue ceiling, constellated with golden symbols, and of a smooth waxed floor made of dark wood, before Lestrange dragged me by the arm – holding tight onto my already bruised flesh – towards golden gates that stood at one end of the gigantic hall.

Beyond the golden gates was a smaller hall, where a dozen grim-faced workers were waiting. They almost cowered in fright at the sight of Lestrange, though many curious glances were also shot in my direction. Lestrange seemed to have noticed that, too, because he growled threateningly at a younger man who was watching me with interest. The man went white and hastily looked away.

We had a lift to ourselves. Lestrange didn't say a word to me as long as the lift kept rising, and I must say I didn't try at all to start a conversation. As soon as the lift stopped with a clatter on Level One, he grabbed my arm again – I was beginning to wonder if they all thought me too dumb to be able to walk on my own – and led me rather unceremoniously along a corridor that was already full of waiting people. Most of them were leaning against the wall, and a heavily pregnant woman had sat on the floor, looking completely exhausted. Lestrange passed by them without sparing them a glance, until he reached the end of the corridor. There, a man in plain black robes was standing guard next to an oak door decorated with complicated carvings. Words were written in golden letters on the oak pane: _Rodolphus Lestrange, Minister for Magic._

"_She_ has an appointment with the Minister," Lestrange said gruffly.

The man didn't look impressed at all.

"Oh yes, the little French girl," he said, wrapping me in a careless and condescending gaze. "Yeah, the Minister said she would have to wait. He has more important things to do."

Lestrange was astonishingly quick; he dropped my arm and drew his wand from the sheath hanging from his belt in one swift and fluid motion. A second later the wand was pointed under the man's chin.

"And does Rodolphus think," snarled Lestrange, "that I have the time to go and fetch schoolgirls all around London if he doesn't even want to see them? What does he think I am? A bloody babysitter?"

"Put that away, Lestrange," snapped the sentry with impressive calmness. "Nobody's asking you to baby-sit. You can get out of here if you don't want to wait. Now lower your wand before you make a complete fool of yourself."

Lestrange pushed his wand into the man's flesh; but the sentry didn't flinch and they just stared hard at each other for at least thirty seconds. Then Lestrange abruptly put his wand back in its sheath, turned on his heels and strode away without one glance in my direction.

I wasn't going to complain. I had spent the last two minutes massaging my bruised and aching arm but the feeling wasn't back yet in my numb fingers.

"Miss," said the sentinel in a bored voice, "you'll have to wait in the room on your left."

And with a lazy flick of his wand he unlocked a door on the left side of the corridor; I wordlessly opened it and stepped inside, feeling on the back of my neck the envious glares of all those who had been waiting in the corridor, probably for hours, and probably forced to stand there all this time, crammed together like cattle.

The room was small and very gloomy. A candle on a round table displayed a scarce flickering light, barely illuminating the faces of two men sitting on straight-backed chairs and talking quietly. They didn't look up when I came in, and as I wasn't too keen on being looked down upon or laughed at for my 'schoolish' aspect, this suited me perfectly.

I sat on the only chair still available. The hairpins maintaining the plait round my head were painfully pulling on my hair, making me feel as though hundredths of tiny needles were digging in my scalp; I took them off my hair one by one, gathering them in my lap, and I let the plait fall down my back with a sigh of relief.

I suddenly noticed the silence lying over the room – the two men had stopped talking. I cautiously looked up, and wished almost at once that I had kept focusing on the small heap of black hairpins in my lap, for they were watching me with mild surprise. They had on their face that kind of look, typical of grown-ups, that one wears when they find a child playing silly games in the dirt in the middle of a group of adults talking about serious things.

I felt a blush creeping up my neck and cheeks. They were still looking at me, unblinkingly, as if trying to figure out what on earth I was doing here. They were both tall and slim men, quite young, and wealthy if I were to guess from their brand-new, perfectly cut clothes. The thinner had short black hair and glasses, and he was distractedly nibbling his bottom lip as he surveyed me; he looked tired and mournful. His friend was broader in the shoulder and didn't seem quite as sad as the bespectacled man, though he did look serious. His hair was black, too, but it was sleeker and longer. Though none of them wore Rodolphus' Lestrange disdainful scowl, I could tell they were from ancient families. The man with long hair had those delicate and pale features that were a distinguishing sign of aristocratic blood; the man with glasses didn't show such blatant signs of nobility, but he was visibly the sort of man that is used to giving orders, not receiving them.

I abruptly realised we had been staring hard at each other for a whole minute; the air was tense with wariness and the silence was deafening. The situation was growing more embarrassing every second; at last I felt I had to break the silence.

"Hello," I ventured timidly.


	3. A Contract of Ashes and Blood

**A/N: At last, some information about the Potters. A million thanks to concretya and Dr.Fawkes for dropping a review for the previous chapter -- I was beginning to think this story was a hopeless case.**

**Enjoy! **

**

* * *

Chapter Two: A contract of ashes and blood **

_I remember the first time I saw her. _

_I was in a dim-lit, lugubrious waiting room next to the Minister's office, which was now taken by the Death Eater Rodolphus Lestrange. Sirius had been allowed to come with me this time – or at least he had not been driven back by the Cerberus guarding the golden gates in the Atrium. He was sitting by my side and kept up an uninterrupted flow of insults and nasty remarks about Lestrange and his court of Death Eaters – including Sirius' own brother Regulus – in an attempt to prevent me from thinking about what Lestrange had in store for me this time. _

_I have to admit I had stopped listening to him after perhaps two minutes of waiting in the half-darkness. Entering that room had re-opened my still very fresh wound, and the memory of the last time I had sat on this hard straight-backed chair had rushed back to me, stabbing me painfully in the chest. _

_Last time, it hadn't been Sirius sitting next to me. On his chair had sat my beautiful wife, Lily, her face pale with anxiety and lack of sleep, but her eyes dry – for she never cried in front of Harry. _

_Instead of Sirius, whom I was now watching blankly, I could still see her, perched on the very edge of the chair, her red hair framing her face and falling gracefully on the back of her worn-out black robes, and the vivid-green eyes circled with dark shadows made a striking contrast with her milky skin. She had been twisting her hands, causing her wedding ring to dig into her flesh, until I had taken that hand in mine and given it a gentle squeeze. Then she had looked up at me and smiled – a nervous, helpless smile, only a pale shadow of the smile I knew and loved. _

_That time, the air had not been full of furious whispers wishing Lestrange's slow and atrocious death; Lily and I hadn't uttered a word, but Harry, on the contrary, had been cheerfully talking to himself, oblivious of the atmosphere heavy with unspoken threats. I could still hear his squeaky little voice echoing on the walls, the sharp tap-tap-tap of his small feet as he ran from one side of the room to the other as fast as his chubby little legs could carry him, holding his broom-toy high above his head and making whooshing sounds with his mouth. At one point he had climbed on the remaining chair – that chair that now stood hopelessly empty in the shadows – and, having finally settled in it, had sent us a toothy grin from across the table. _

_"Mummy! Mummy! I'm up here!" _

_My little three-year-old, for whom succeeding in climbing on a chair taller than himself was far more important than all the grown-ups' worries – wars, unfair laws and pure-blood mania… _

_"That's wonderful, darling…" _

_Oh, Lily's tearful voice, her painful smile as her eyes suddenly grew very bright… Had she sensed, too, that it was the last time we were together as the Potter family? _

_The Potter family… That was over now. It had been over since Lestrange had let us in his office – Lily clutching Harry's hand so tight that my little boy was looking up at her with wide eyes – in order to pronounce our sentence, in his most indifferent voice, and with the bored expression he had worn on his face for the occasion. _

_"In accordance with the new law instituted by the All-Powerful Dark Lord, whose Name is not to be besmirched by common mortals' lips, stating that no marriage should be contracted between pure-bloods and wizards or witches of lesser lineage, I declare that the marriage contracted between James Potter, pure-blood, and Lily Evans, Mudblood, is null and void. The half-blood Harry James Evans, born of the aforementioned union, is to be left in the care of his mother and will not be allowed to bear the name Potter. Any violation of this sentence will be punished by torture and death of the Mudblood and her child, by order of the Dark Lord." _

_I had wanted to rise. I had wanted to scream. I had wanted to draw my wand and throw at him every curse coming to my mind. But of course our wands had been taken away from us, and a masked Death Eater was standing behind Lestrange with their wand in their hand, ready to strike. I had opened my mouth to protest, to curse, to insult him – anything but stay silent and passively accept our sentence. But then, the Death Eater had lowered their hood, revealing the gleeful, sneering face of Lestrange's wife, Bellatrix – and her wand had been pointed at Harry. _

_I had stayed silent. I had obediently risen from my chair when I had been dismissed. I had taken Lily and Harry out of the office, only to be stopped in the corridor by another Death Eater, who had announced to me that he had been ordered to take Lily to a village especially built for Mudbloods. _

_"Let me at least say goodbye to him –" _

_"Mum! Wait for Daddy!" _

_"Quiet, boy! Miss Evans, follow me at once, please." _

_"Daddy! Daddy! Come on!" _

_"Miss Evans, if you don't make him shut up _I _will!" _

_"Shh, Harry, you m-mustn't –" _

_"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy...!" _

_But they had been taken away. _

_My wand had been given back to me, and Lily's wand had been snapped in two before my eyes. Mudbloods weren't allowed to use magic. _

_I still don't know how I survived the following week; I barely slept, having lost the habit of sleeping alone, and I had to restrain myself from calling "I'm home!" every time I entered our house. No one was waiting for me there anymore. _

_After three days, I found myself unable to stand it anymore; I locked the house and came to live with Sirius. He had scarcely left me alone since. _

_And here he was, with me, a week after Lestrange had casually shattered my life with a few words, in the very same room where Lily, Harry and I had been a true family for the last time. _

_My eyes shifted away from Sirius to rest on the empty chair facing us, that chair on which Harry had been scrambling up a week earlier. _

_But it was no longer empty. _

_She was sitting there; she had entered the room without any of us noticing, silent and swift – merely another shadow in the dark room. The quavering light of the candle caught in the folds of the blue silky material of her robes. I remember focusing on those robes: they were displaying a surreal aura, speaking of books and parchments, of detentions and carefree days, as if this lonely figure was an apparition from a faraway past – familiar and yet strange. _

_She was removing the hairpins from her hair, and the corner of her mouth twitched now and then with a slight wince of pain. I studied her features carefully, stocking the information in a corner of my mind, a habit acquired after years of fighting in the dark against Voldemort's army. She had a rather pleasant face, but not one to stand out in a crowd. Everything was moderate in this face, to the point of being dull. Her hair was fine and of that light-brown shade that is so commonly seen – not really dark but not quite fair; nothing in the like of the thick hair of that triumphant auburn colour I knew so well… _

_Her plait finally fell and she let out a sigh of relief. That plait hanging down her back accentuated the schoolish aura I had detected earlier, and I was now almost certain her outfit was a school uniform. She couldn't have been older than fifteen or sixteen. _

_I remember thinking that frail apparition was like a breath of fresh air in the gloomy room, in that atmosphere heavy with sad memories of the past and dread of the future. As I looked at the unknown teenager gathering her hairpins in her lap and smoothing down her robes, as if it mattered that much, in that time of bitter defeat, to be caught tousle-haired and scruffy-looking, I had the feeling time had suspended its course – for one short, dreamy, blissful moment. _

_She suddenly raised her head, probably feeling our gazes fixed on her, and I was startled by the sight of two extraordinary eyes – big eyes of a soft sky blue colour, without any fleck of grey or green in them; eerily perfect, but at the same time, strangely lacking of that sparkle I had gotten used to seeing in other eyes, in far more beautiful, lively, perfect eyes… Only, those eyes had been green._

* * *

"Hello…"

The man with long hair jumped slightly, as if he hadn't been expecting me to be able to talk at all. He quickly regained his composure and shot at me a cheerful:

"Hello yourself! Did you get lost, or something?"

As I had expected, he was probably wondering what I could possibly be doing there, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised by his tone of voice. True, he was a little condescending, but at least his gaze was friendly and warm – quite a nice change from all the amused glances I had received from Lestrange today.

"No, I didn't get lost, thank you for your concern," I answered slowly, careful not to trip on my words. "Do… erm… Do I look that much out of place?"

"Well, to tell the truth, yes, you do," he said with a short laugh. "Not that I'm complaining, though. You _are_ a nice change from all these bloody penguins pacing up and down the corridors in their Death Eaters uniforms. Foreigner?"

"Yes, I'm French."

God, how I hated my accent.

"Are you on holiday?" he asked again, leaning forwards and putting his elbows on the round wobbly table as he eyed me. "Do French students have holidays besides the Christmas and Easter holidays?"

I felt myself blushing again. Of course, he was thinking I was still at school.

"I'm no longer a student," I mumbled.

"You're not?" exclaimed the other man, who hadn't stopped surveying me all this time with a strange expression on his face.

I looked at him in surprise.

"No, I'm not."

"Weird," he commented while leaning back in his chair. "I was so sure you were wearing a uniform."

"James, mate, you're being rude," said the long-haired man casually. "Miss, I'd like to introduce you to my friend James, famous for his spectacular lack of taste as far as feminine clothes are concerned. Well, except when he's picking something for his wife. Then –"

He stopped abruptly and closed his eyes for a second, as if he expected the ceiling to fall on his head. He then shot a sideway look at his friend, whose face had suddenly darkened as he had cast his eyes downwards, the weary and mournful look back on his features.

"Actually you were right," I said hastily, wanting to disperse the awkward silence threatening to settle once more. "I'm wearing my Beauxbâtons uniform. That was the most convenient outfit for travelling. I'm just out of school, I interrupted my seventh year," I added as an explanation.

The long-haired man raised an eyebrow at me.

"That boring?" he asked with half a smile.

"Family problem," I said evasively. "I have to see the Minister about it."

This had the advantage of pulling the bespectacled man – _James,_ I thought, but even in my own head I wasn't comfortable with calling an unknown adult by his first name – out of what must have been depressing musings.

"_You_ have to see Lestrange?" he repeated with a doubtful expression.

"Well, yes," I said warily. "He was the one to pull me out of Beauxbâtons, and he came to fetch me in Paris."

"He what?" both men said, abruptly straightening in their chairs.

"Why would he bother to go to France and fetch… a _teenager?_" said the man called James. Then, shaking his head with disbelief, he added, "That doesn't make sense."

"Being rude again," said his friend in a singsong voice and with a forced idleness, as if to conceal his own surprise at my words. "People don't like it when you're talking as if they weren't in the room, Prongs. By the way, my name's Sirius," he added with a smile in my direction. "What's yours?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but at that exact moment the door opened behind me and I heard the sentry's bored voice calling:

"Potter, the Minister will see you now. The French girl is going with you. Black, you're staying here."

_Potter? _

_James _Potter?

It couldn't be him. That was just impossible. That man was at least ten years older than I was, and from what I'd just heard, he was already married. It just… couldn't _be. _

"Miss? You're supposed to follow me."

I raised my head to find James Potter standing beside me, towering over me from the top of his tall and thin stature. I nodded dumbly and rose, my gestures as mechanical as a sleepwalker's, and followed him out of the room. Just before closing the door, I looked back, almost longing to dash back into the gloomy room and hide there, away from Lestrange and his machinations. Black – _Sirius_ Black, I remembered – was still sitting there, visibly confused; when he caught my eyes, however, he managed to send me a wink and a reassuring smile. I didn't have the time to answer him, though – a second later a hand clenched around my bruised arm again and roughly pulled me away from the door, which promptly shut in my face.

"Merlin, did they choose the dumbest?" muttered the sentry angrily as he shoved me in the direction of the office.

The comment didn't even sting. It was as if I had been anaesthetised – my mind was still struggling to take in the shocking bit of information about the bespectacled man's identity, and anything else was just slipping through my head without reaching me.

We were let into the office; it was a large, high-ceilinged room, whose walls were covered with black hangings on which was painted a strange and ominous symbol: a skull, and a serpent descending from its mouth and coiling up around itself. The skull and snake were of that dark shade of red, almost brown, that blood takes on when it's drying, but the snake's eyes were bright green and they gleamed like emeralds in the darkness. Though the air was completely still, the hangings shivered from time to time, and the slow rippling of the heavy and dark fabric gave me the feeling that the snake was alive and moving.

Lestrange was reading a wad of parchments covered with words written in green ink, while he sat behind a huge desk made of dark oak and decorated with carvings and gildings. Behind him stood a tall and slim silhouette, cloaked and hooded, their wand drawn and obviously ready to be used. Whoever was hiding behind the black hood didn't make any comment at our entry; Lestrange himself didn't look up when the door shut behind us without a sound, and we stood there in front of him like two defendants in front of their judge.

Mr. Potter gave an impatient cough, and Lestrange, alerted by the sound, raised his head at last.

"Ah… Mr. Potter, Miss de Syrnac," he said coldly. "This will have to be quick, I have a busy schedule. Miss de Syrnac, you already know what I'm about to tell you; Mr. Potter doesn't, but this will be put right in a few minutes."

With those curt words, he pushed aside the parchments he had been reading and seized his wand, which had been lying on a dark red velvet cushion next to his right hand. He waved it around for a whole minute, his eyes half-closed, and a flow of old incantations came out of his mouth. The hangings fluttered more forcefully than before as the enchantment blew like a cold breeze around the room. I started shaking uncontrollably; Mr. Potter was pale, and beads of sweat had formed at the edge of his dark hair. Even the people standing behind the desk shifted uneasily as the cold wind brushed past them.

Then, in the wake of Lestrange's wand, there appeared what looked like a wisp made, not of smoke, but of dark ash. The ash was dancing, rippling and twirling in the air, and finally it seemed to condense until it formed a single sheet of black parchment, so thin it looked like it would crumble into dust at the lightest touch.

The parchment made of ashes hovered above Lestrange's desk for a few seconds, before fluttering down with the graceful nonchalance of a dead leaf and landing on top of the desk. Every eye in the room had been following its course.

The masked figure behind Lestrange approached the desk to peer with obvious interest at the thin black parchment, spread on the smooth oak surface. As if drawn by invisible strings, Mr. Potter came closer too, until he was standing right in front of the desk. I followed.

Lestrange delicately brushed the parchment with the tip of his wand, and words written in bright red ink suddenly appeared on it.

"A magical marriage contract," he explained as he leant back in his chair, sounding very pleased with himself.

I suddenly realised my mouth had gone very dry. Was I to marry James Potter right here, right now? No talking beforehand, no ceremony? I closed my eyes and my head started to spin. My ears were suddenly filled with an odd hissing sound, and I felt completely empty. When was the last time I had eaten anything?

_No. I mustn't faint. Not now. Not in front of them. _

"A marriage contract?"

Mr. Potter's tense voice cut through the fog that had started to drown my thoughts.

"What do you mean, Lestrange? Just last week, you –"

"What I mean is simple. It is the Dark Lord's wish that you shouldn't let your family name disappear. It would be a shame; the Potter family is a very ancient wizarding family, and the purity of your blood is enough to give you and your descendants a selected place in the Dark Lord's inner circle. Therefore he asked me to find you a suitable wife, which I found in the person of Miss de Syrnac."

"_Her?_"

Humiliation burned my cheeks. Of course, he was right; this was ridiculous. But nevertheless, the way he had said it was as insulting as Lestrange's most scornful look.

"Yes, Potter, her! You and Miss de Syrnac are to sign here, at the bottom of the parchment –"

"What's your problem, Lestrange? Was that schoolgirl the only one you could find?"

"Miss de Syrnac is from a very ancient family, she's of age, and she won't give you any trouble. She's likely to do anything you want her to."

"_Enough_."

It was weird to hear my own clear voice resounding in the middle of the loud argument between the two men, both speaking much more loudly than me. But if I was surprised by my own boldness – any other time, I would have stepped back in the shadows and tried not to draw attention – it was nothing compared with the shock I experienced when both men fell instantly silent, and turned to me expectantly.

I wanted to say that they didn't have the right to talk about me that way, especially when I happened to be in the room. I wanted to let out my frustration at being so obviously regarded as an object, something that had been chosen in a catalogue as one would choose a pet for their child. But I didn't. I was just not ready for the consequences of an outburst; I may have died of shame before I reached the end of my first sentence. So I bottled up my anger, I swallowed my pride, and I hid again behind the smooth placid expression I had worn all day.

"I don't think there's any point in arguing," I said slowly at last, trying with all my might to prevent my voice from shaking. "So if we could – get this over with… It would allow us to avoid wasting more time."

Lestrange nodded, his usual smirk on his lips again.

"Good girl," he said sarcastically, and my blood boiled again with anger, all faintness forgotten. "I suggest you should sign first, then, Miss de Syrnac. Here's the quill –"

He handed me a long black quill, with an unusually sharp point; I seized it and bent over the parchment, ready to sign.

The lines of the contract were oddly blurred, and I couldn't read them. At the very bottom of the parchment, an empty space was waiting for our signatures.

I wrote my full name in that cursive script I had always used at school; even when my essays were poor, my teachers used to say they were worth reading just for the beautiful handwriting. As soon as scratching sound of the quill against the rough parchment had stopped, though, I sucked in a sharp breath as I felt a searing pain in the back of my left hand; and I saw, with a jolt of shock, round, long and elegant letters carved, as if with a scalpel, in the pale skin of my hand. Letters forming the words _Marie-Antoinette de Syrnac_.

I hated the sight of blood.

And yet, my blood was now shining on my hand, as well as on the black sheet of parchment, in thin ribbons chiselling my name. I grimaced; was that how Lestrange intended to bind me to the Potter family? With a pact signed with my own blood? I had been naïve enough to think those kinds of practices had been long abandoned. It was – well, crude. Almost primitive. As a matter of fact, Lestrange had impressed me so much previously, with his aristocratic manners and his cold courtesy, that I expected something much more refined from him.

I gave the quill to Lestrange and stepped back, covering my stinging left hand with my right. I glanced at the wound and saw it had already healed, leaving the skin red and sore, but rather smooth.

"Potter?" said Lestrange coldly. "I'd rather you would spare me the obligation of hexing you into signing. It would be a waste of time and energy.

Mr. Potter was livid, and his eyes were a scary sight: they were wide open, and burning with such a violent hatred that Lestrange's smirk faded and he visibly tensed, his hand convulsively clenching around his wand. The cloaked figure took a step forward, brandishing their wand, and seemed to hesitate for a minute or two.

Then, to my utter astonishment, they pointed their wand at me and a voice came from under the hood: a horrible feminine voice, dripping with vicious delight and a kind of unhealthy excitation.

"Potter, let's play a game, shall we? In three seconds you will have signed the parchment, or I'll torture the little girl. I can be very inventive, you know. There's not only the Cruciatus Curse. I have been working on a nasty little hex lately, and I'll be happy to try it on your charming little fiancée. You'll enjoy the screaming."

An astounded silence filled the room. All remaining colour had gone from Mr. Potter's face, and even his lips were grey. Was he really taking that woman seriously? She was insane, it was obvious. Only a madwoman would talk about torture with such glee in her voice. And the _screaming? _How could anyone enjoy hearing screams?

"Potter, sign now," murmured Lestrange, his voice dangerously low but perfectly audible nonetheless. "Or I'll let Bellatrix have her way with the pair of you."

Mr. Potter abruptly grabbed the quill and signed, in a few quick and efficient gestures. His handwriting was neat and narrow; every single letter claimed determination and authority. He barely winced when his skin was cut and he threw the quill on the desk, without even deigning to look at Lestrange.

"Very well," said the latter shortly. "You and Miss de Syrnac are now bound by a magical contract, demanding that you get married tomorrow at this time of the day. The ceremony will take place in the Atrium, and after that you will both be taken to the house that was built for you. A house worthy of your lineage. Now you may go.

Potter turned on his heels and strode out of the office; I curtseyed slightly to say goodbye to Lestrange, and by doing so I caught a glimpse of the black parchment. The writing I hadn't been able to read earlier had become suddenly clear when both signatures had been affixed, and I was able to quickly scan the contract.

I straightened up, not wanting Lestrange to think I was spying on him. Lestrange answered my curtsey with a rather offhand bow of the head, and I bit my lip, trying to stay impassive in front of that new demonstration of his contempt for me – me, the schoolgirl, the teenager, the little French girl…

I walked out of the office, and had to force my way through the throng that was pressing itself, even denser that before, against the Minister's door. When I reached the end of the corridor, I found that I wouldn't have to wait for a lift: one had already arrived and two men were stepping inside. I made to follow them, but I stopped dead when I recognized Mr. Potter and his friend Sirius Black. As they turned around, Mr. Black's eyes met mine and his jaw dropped in shock. Mr. Potter, who had been talking to him in frantic whispers a second before, fell silent and turned to look at me as well.

And then, in his hazel gaze, I was startled to recognize the same hatred that had been burning in his eyes when he had been staring at Lestrange a few minutes before. But I thought I also saw, behind that veil of violent loathing, a fleeting spark of terrible pain.

As I stood there, petrified by that hateful look, the grilles slowly shut in my face and the lift started to go down.

I waited in the corridor for the next lift; in spite of the surrounding noise and stifling hotness, caused by the congregation of dozens of human beings in this narrow underground place, I was able to isolate myself in my thoughts. And God knows how absorbing they were.

I could tell I was very likely to be unhappy as Mr. Potter's wife. My future husband clearly hated me – though I had yet to guess the reason of such a violent dislike. He hadn't seemed so hostile in the waiting room, before we had entered the Minister's office. And even then, he had pretty much ignored me, until he had been made to sign the contract.

Why did he hate the idea of marrying me so much? He obviously thought I was too young, and probably not pretty enough for his taste, but even a magical contract such as the one we had signed couldn't force him to live constantly at my side, or to be faithful to me. I knew quite a bit about those contracts: in magical French nobility, marriages used to be contracted in the same way – though the couple never had to sign with their blood, thank heavens. When signing, the husband and his wife only undertook to live under the same roof and bear the same name, and the children born from the wife would be the heirs of the family, whether they were the husband's children or not

Therefore – even if that black parchment did seem to hold a magical power much stronger than the average contract, and thus wouldn't be as easily revocable – Mr. Potter was to marry me, but he would remain free to come and go as he pleased. I had read enough on the black contract to know he wasn't required to take care of me in any way. He could forget my existence and live a bachelor's life, as long as he came home from time to time – and even then, he was free to spend his time away from me. We didn't even have to share the same bedroom. So why –?

Then I remembered. Mr. Black had let slip in the waiting room that Mr. Potter was married. What had happened to his first wife? Had she left him? Had she died in the war? Did he still love her so much he couldn't bear the idea of marrying another woman?

No, not woman – _schoolgirl. _

_"Oh yes, the little French girl…   
_

_"Does Lestrange think that I have the time to go and fetch schoolgirls all around London…?" _

_"Why would he bother to go to France and fetch… a teenager?   
_

_"Merlin, did they choose the dumbest?" _

_"…Was that schoolgirl the only one you could find?   
_

_"…She won't give you any trouble. She's likely to do anything you want her to." _

_"Good girl…   
_

_"…I'll torture the little girl…"   
_

My lip curled as a bitter taste filled my mouth. They were the ones who had wrenched me away from my quiet life in Beauxbâtons, and they all considered me a child unable to do anything without being told to beforehand. I was sick of it.

And as I stepped into a lift that had finally come to a halt at my floor, in a cacophony of clatters, scrapes and creaks, I decided I would never let anybody look down upon me again.

* * *

**A/N: (Looking sheepish) Slightly shorter than my average chapter. I do hope it was good enough, though. Many thanks to my wonderful Beta Sara!  
**

**Please review...?**


	4. The Coldest Day of my Life

**A/N: **Thanks to all those who took the time to leave me a review!

**_yournombrehere:_ **The story isn't meant to be a cheerful one, I'm sorry. But I promise you there will be lighter moments :)

_**Dr.Fawkes:**_ Don't worry, we'll see a lot of Lily, Harry and many other characters we already know. This story has only a few OCs.

**_Nutellamaedchen:_** Oooh, so you've discovered that story too :D I'll gladly strangle Lestrange myself. You actually tried to read the French version! I'm impressed!

_**kerricarri:**_ Thank you for what you said about the flashbacks... I wasn't too sure about the stylistic effect. All the questions you asked will be answered, though it will take some time before that happens; a clue: I'll end that story in such a way that every single events (except the very beginning of _Philosopher's Stone_) told by JKR can still happen. Yes, even in a AU story, my love for canon is still there...

**_Laeka:_** You're perfectly welcome. Thank you for reading.

_** To all: **_I received a few reviews pointing out the likeness between Voldemort's reign and Hitler's; I'd like to say nonetheless that it is totally accidental and that it was never my intention to make historical references in my fiction (well... save for a Queen of France you may have heard of :)). You were right, though, I hadn't thought of that!

**Enjoy the chapter! **

**

* * *

Chapter Three: The coldest day of my life**

Cold.

The memory of my wedding was oddly blurred and imprecise, dominated by this sole sensation.

Cold.

The rain lazily splattering the windowpanes of my hotel bedroom was bringing a chilly dampness in the room itself, while I stood on a stool, immobile and silent like a wax doll as a skinny and surly-looking old witch adjusted my long white dress and my gauze veil.

Cold was the air of the Atrium when I Apparated there, a few minutes before the ceremony; the wizards and their wives gathering under the peacock blue ceiling to see my wedding – people I had never met in my entire life – were casting quick, cool glances in my direction. I was the bride. A necessary tool for the first marriage ever arranged by the Ministry of Magic. Nothing more.

Icy cold was James Potter's gaze as he took in my white figure, when I joined him to stand in front of Lestrange. Hidden behind the fragile shield of my veil, which fell in front of my face, I guiltlessly let my attention wander while Lestrange spoke the ritual words. I thought of Aimée. I would have to write to her as soon as I had the chance. There was a week left before the Toussaint holidays; would Tinville let her go to see me? Oh how I needed her now… I needed her warmth… I was so cold…

Cold was James Potter's voice, cutting through the air of the Atrium like a sharp blade as he spoke the words that would bind him to me, bitterness dripping from every single intonation. Cold was the hand that took my own, and cold was the ring that slipped on my finger.

When it was my turn to speak, I forced my voice into a monotonous tone, betraying no feeling, no emotion. I made my speech mechanical and dull, purposefully emptying the words of their meaning and solemnity. This marriage didn't mean anything to any of them; therefore it wouldn't mean anything to me either.

Strange wedding, bearing all the appearances of an alliance reluctantly sealed between two sworn enemies.

After the ceremony, a table loaded with dishes of an extravagant luxury magically appeared in a remote corner of the Atrium. The guests' interest was at once aroused; losing their politely bored expressions, they all headed for the table, exchanging those compliments and jokes that were the rule every time wizards of the high society met.

I lifted my veil and threw it back so that it covered my hair; James Potter didn't glance once at my uncovered face as he extended his arm to walk me to the table. I put a light hand on his arm, barely touching him, seemingly as indifferent as he was.

Lunch dragged on with unbearable slowness. Lestrange was embarked on a never-ending discussion about the Dark Lord's projects with the other wizards, most of whom were hanging upon his every word, while the women chatted and laughed about some futile subject. At my side, James Potter was barely eating; his friend Sirius Black was seated opposite us and they exchanged signs of connivance now and again. The rest of the time, they were both lost in thoughts, Potter nervously rolling his new wedding ring in his fingers, and Black absentmindedly playing with his knife.

At one point, Black raised his head and caught my eye; this surprised me: many other guests had looked in my direction, but their gaze had slid on me as if I wasn't even there – or rather, as if I was part of the decoration. However, Black had planted his eyes on mine and wouldn't look away. When I raised an inquiring eyebrow, his face broke into a small smile and to my utter astonishment he slightly raised his glass in my direction, as if toasting me.

I didn't smile back: Black's gesture had attracted a woman's attention, and she was now eyeing me closely. I obscurely felt that it was not a good omen to be seen as a friend of Black's – the other guests had completely ignored him, which was an infallible sign in that code-governed society.

Instead of answering Black's discreet tribute, I turned around to face the inquisitive woman. She was undeniably beautiful; golden reflects were playing in her long and thick dark hair, which fell in a silky flow on her shoulders, barely held back by a dark red headband. Her dress, made of dark red silk, was perfectly fitting the curves of her body; and the jewels she was wearing proclaimed a flawless taste. Otherwise, with her strong jaw and her abrupt, direct gestures, she displayed an aura of uncommon strength for a woman, which made her singularly lack the grace I was used to seeing in more slender women.

Her eyes met mine and her fierce stare sent an unexplained jolt of dread shooting through my body. Though my instinctive reaction was to look down and blush under this sharp observation, I did my best to hold her gaze, faithful to my resolution of never letting anybody look down upon me again – and I understood almost at once that I had made a mistake. She must have been expecting me to drop my eyes and my response, which, admittedly, could have been interpreted as defiance, seemed to arouse her suspicions. Her eyes narrowed in mistrust and a second later I had a most peculiar experience: for a split-second I completely lost the consciousness of my surroundings, as if I had been buried under a ton of cotton.

This odd feeling vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but I had had the time to recognise a Legilimency spell; teaching me Occlumency had been the one and only thing my father had gone to the trouble of doing – it was extremely useful in a world where nobody ever spoke their mind, where every word, every stare had a hidden meaning, and where every courteous conversation was a duel.

I had no trouble countering the unknown woman's Legilimency spell; bringing up Occlumency shields had almost become a reflex after all the lessons I had received on the subject. In fact, I warded off the blow with such easiness that my aggressor gaped at me in bewilderment. I addressed her with my most charming smile and slightly lifted my glass, as Black had done a few minutes earlier.

I could still feel her staring at me long after I had looked away.

Around three in the afternoon, the last dishes finally disappeared, along with the last emptied glasses of wine, and the guests proceeded to go back to their businesses. They all shook Lestrange's hand as they went, and most of them went to shake Potter's as well. As for me, I had my hand kissed once or twice, but on the whole the guests didn't pay me much attention – that is, until the woman who had used Legilimency against me appeared in front of me, as suddenly as if she had shot up from the ground.

"Mrs. Potter," she abruptly said with a slight bow of her head, never tearing her eyes from mine. Her voice awoke an echo in my memory, and yet again, dread chilled my blood. I had heard that voice before.

I answered her less-than-polite greeting by a similar bow and another one of my false smiles.

"I am sorry, but I don't think we have been introduced," I pointed out with all required sweetness.

"Oh, we did meet before, though," she replied with a smirk. "Yesterday, to be specific."

Yesterday. When had I heard a woman's voice yesterday…?

Oh…

"_Potter, let's play a game, shall we? In three seconds you will have signed the parchment, or I'll torture the little girl… You'll enjoy the screaming."_

"Oh, yes, now I remember. Bellatrix, is that it?"

Was that my voice? How could I sound so calm, as if I was about to add, "I'm delighted to meet you"? That woman had threatened to torture me. She had just tried to force entry into my mind. And all I was saying was…

"But I don't remember ever getting the chance of hearing your last name."

_Pretence._ A familiar voice suddenly whispered long forgotten words from a remote corner of my memory still misted up with an old grief.

_We're living in a world of pretence. You may be paralysed with fright, you may be burning with anger, you may be dying of sorrow, but don't you ever show it. Always pretend. Act as if nothing could affect you. As if you were made of ice. You will scream or cry later. But in front of them, you have to feign. _

My dead mother's words took their full meaning at this moment, as I felt like crumbling to the floor under Bellatrix' mocking gaze and hide away under a table like a lost little girl; as I felt the urge to scream at the man who stood by my side, cold and hateful, that none of this was my fault; as I longed for the comforting presence of my Charms teacher and the way she would just settle everything with a few words and a careless wave of her wand.

And yet here I stood, a genial smile plastered on my features, uttering absurd words of politeness in the face of the woman who had threatened me twice now. But I couldn't let her belittle me again: I risked being permanently labelled as an insignificant creature anybody could order around, if I allowed any witch or wizard other than Lestrange to ridicule me.

Once again, Bellatrix looked slightly unsettled by my reaction, but she quickly regained her composure; projecting her chin forward in a rather aggressive stance, she shot at me:

"Well, you do have some nerve for a little girl just out of her classroom. Who taught you Occlumency?"

Oh. I hadn't been expecting her to be so direct. Blunt frankness was not commonly demonstrated in high magical society: it was often regarded as vulgar. But this Bellatrix hardly seemed at her place among those tortuous-minded noble wizards anyway; in fact, she gave the impression to be more at ease on a battlefield than at exchanging subtle replies with wizards such as Lestrange.

"Even little French girls can receive a good magical education," I answered softly, without ever dropping my sweet smile. Evading questions was another delicate art my mother had been keen on teaching me. "I'm afraid I still don't know your name."

She blinked once or twice, wariness and uncertainty etched in her sharp features.

"Lestrange," she finally said.

I had trouble hiding my surprise this time. Could this woman possibly be related to refined and haughty Rodolphus Lestrange?

"I'm the Minister's wife," she added curtly at my questioning glance.

"Oh, I see. I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lestrange. I apologise for my ignorance," I said, masking my uneasiness under another smile. "I am, after all, a newcomer here. And as you very rightly pointed out, a week ago I was only Marie-Antoinette de Syrnac, student at Beauxbâtons Academy."

She seemed further confused at this.

"Impressive name," she commented, trying to smile back at me. It didn't look like an easy thing for her to do; as if looking cordial wasn't an exercise she practiced often.

I fought back a smirk at her answer. I had 'negligently' dropped my maiden name on purpose; its blatant belonging to the old French nobility always had some effect. It was a cheap way to impress her, I had to admit, but it seemed to work.

"Your first name in itself is quite intriguing," I pleasantly replied, exploiting her evident awkwardness in the subtle game of conversation to push further my advantage, as I would have done in a duel. "What's its origin?"

Who cared what the origin of her name was? This thought was so easily readable in Bellatrix Lestrange's perplexed eyes that I had to prevent myself from smirking again. I had turned the dangerous conversation she had initiated into a harmless, utterly pointless chatting, and she obviously didn't know how to react to it.

"I think it's the name of a constellation," she slowly answered; and I was pleased to see she was now fingering uneasily the golden belt circling her waist. I was taking the upper hand. For the first time since I had left Beauxbâtons, I felt in control, and the sensation was thrilling – though a bit frightening at the same time.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long.

"Well, Bellatrix, you met Mrs. Potter, it seems."

Bellatrix Lestrange wheeled about to face her husband, standing there with Potter and Black. A spark briefly lit up Potter's eyes when Lestrange said "Mrs. Potter"; a spark of pain or anger, or a mixture of both; I couldn't make up my mind. He caught me looking at him and dropped his eyes to the floor almost at once, as if my gaze was burning him. He looked tense and weary.

Black, on the other hand, was wearing a joyous grin as he looked from me to Bellatrix and back again. When Lestrange's wife glowered at him, his grin turned into a smirk and he eyed her with a kind of fierce joy.

"Mrs. Potter," drawled Lestrange's honeyed voice, pulling me out of my observation. "This is my wife Bellatrix. As you seem to be good friends already, I suggest we could invite you and your husband –" He shot a vicious glance at Potter, who paled and bit his lip, but didn't look up, "– to dinner some time this week."

I bowed my head slightly, swallowing hard, as the feeling of icy fear I had always experienced around Lestrange rolled over me once more. He was not one to be fooled by devices such as the ones I had used against his wife; he was obviously too used to those sorts of games.

"Personally, I would be delighted to come," I answered slowly. "But… We may have busy evenings in the coming week…"

I glanced furtively towards Potter. He wasn't even listening to the conversation, and I felt a twinge of annoyance mixed with helplessness. He was not helping me at all. He was letting me struggle alone with Lestrange.

"I am aware your husband may have some things to do this week, as you're moving in your new home tonight," Lestrange retorted coolly, with visible disdain for my dumb answer. "I intended to send you an owl tomorrow, so you can send me back your answer specifying the evening that suits you the most. Surely you won't be _that _busy every evening, will you, Mrs. Potter?"

In other words: you will only sit at home, getting bored, as you're no more than a good-for-nothing _schoolgirl_.

The Lestranges were both smirking as they looked down at me. I realised I had lost all control on the situation; in a few words, Lestrange had reduced me again to a shy little girl.

"Maybe not in the evenings," I replied, while I tried with all my might to prevent my hands from grabbing handfuls of my white dress and twisting the material in nervousness. "But I believe I will be quite busy the rest of the day, besides our settling in. I have to take care of some family matters, mostly regarding succession; I am the last Syrnac after all."

I was inventing wildly at that point, in my attempt to counter Lestrange's attack. The altercation was pushing me at the limit of my self-control; I was a bundle of nerves inside, every sense was alert and my body was tensing, as if readying itself to attack or run away. I was treading on a thin thread extended over a bottomless precipice. One wrong word, one misplaced look, and Lestrange would use that weakness to crush me like an insect.

"Of course," Lestrange agreed sweetly. "I don't want to keep you then; you should go home and rest before facing such a _tiring_ work." Sarcasm dripped from his words, and my only parry was to nod in agreement, as if I hadn't heard the irony in his voice. An amused glint danced in his eyes at my gesture.

"Potter, here you are –" Lestrange said, finally looking away from me.

And he handed Potter a heavy key, adorned on the handle with complicated ironwork. Potter looked at it warily, without taking it.

"What is it?" he shot at Lestrange suspiciously.

"A Portkey," Lestrange answered, his curt voice betraying a hint of impatience. "It will take you and your wife to your new home. Now, _take it._" The last words were spoken in a low voice, almost a growl, heavy with threats. Lestrange's free hand was twitching near his wand pocket.

Potter reached out and roughly grabbed the key without looking at Lestrange, and then he extended it so that I could touch it as well.

"Well, it was a pleasure," I said hurriedly with a slight curtsey. Mrs. Lestrange merely glared at me, her lips pursed, and her husband nodded to acknowledge my goodbye. His eyes were still fixed on Potter.

"Pleasure was mutual," said Black joyfully, surprising everyone in the room – Potter's eyes widened and he stared at his friend, who shrugged in an apologetic sort of way; Lestrange raised an eyebrow at him and Bellatrix looked more furious than ever. But I didn't want to face other remarks or questions, so I seized the key and I heard Potter let out a gasp of surprise as I felt a hook abruptly pulling me forward from behind my navel.

The Atrium disappeared in a whirl of bright colours.

* * *

My feet collided brutally with a floor of hard stone and I almost lost my balance. The swirling wind has nearly torn off my veil, and it hung pitifully on one side, uncovering my head; I grabbed a handful of the ripped gauze and pulled it off completely. 

I was standing under the stone porch of an imposing house. I had just the time to take in the oak double door and the heavy iron knocker, fixed to the oak pane in the very middle of the door, when I heard someone cursing under their breath behind me.

I started; I had almost forgotten I wasn't alone. Turning around, I saw Potter brushing the dirt off his knees; apparently, he had tripped and fallen when we had landed.

He picked up the key and raised his head to glare at me.

"Next time you're using a Portkey I'm already holding, warn me beforehand, okay?" he snapped.

I blushed and muttered, "Sorry."

It was the very first time he had actually talked to me.

He quickly joined me in front of the door and shoved the key into the lock. The key began to glow at once with a green light, and suddenly it melted in the keyhole with a sinister hissing sound, producing an acrid-smelling dark smoke that made both of us take a few hasty steps backwards.

When the smoke cleared at last, I wiped my watering eyes with the back of my hand and was able to see that the door was ajar. The keyhole and the key had both disappeared, leaving only a fleck of iron on the dark wood.

Potter stepped forward and pushed the door with one hand; it soundlessly swung on its hinges, revealing a dark and high-ceilinged hallway, paved with black and white tiles. The place was as cold and unwelcoming as a prison.

Potter looked at me enquiringly as he held the door open; I nodded and stepped in, thanking him in a low voice when I passed him. I shivered as the chilly air of the hallway pierced the thin material of my wedding dress and enveloped me like an icy coat.

A flight of marble stairs opened on my left and led to the first floor, which was drowned in the shadows. On my right stood a door painted in the same white, neutral paint as the walls of the hallway, which were completely bare except for iron brackets fixed at regular intervals and supporting unlit torches.

At the end of the hallway, facing me, a double door with glass panes let in the hallway the last beams of a pale sunlight. This door was probably the entrance to a garden or a terrace. My heart leapt; as long as there was a garden, this house wouldn't be too bad to live in.

"I'm going to leave you here."

I wheeled around and found, to my great surprise, that Potter had not entered the house behind me. He was still standing in the doorway.

"I've got a few things to do this evening," he went on shortly. "I trust Lestrange will have had your suitcase brought here. Settle in and don't wait for me."

With those words, and without even giving me the time to answer, he stepped out and slammed the door shut behind him.

I stood in the middle of the cold hallway, immobile in my wedding dress, staring at the door.

I was alone.

* * *

Having nothing else to do, I started my exploration of the house. The door on the right side of the hallway, it turned out, opened on a drawing room furnished with a couch and three low armchairs circling a coffee table. The furniture was of a dull grey and wouldn't have looked out of place in a Spartan home. The couch was remarkably uncomfortable, and I didn't even bother to try the lower seats. As I looked around the sad and gloomy drawing room, I couldn't help feeling utterly disappointed in Lestrange. For a man so obviously proud of his belonging to the upper magical society, he had been strangely parsimonious when choosing the furniture for our home. 

I went out of the drawing room and into the hallway again. The high, haughty-looking grandfather clock standing erect near the garden door hadn't struck five in the afternoon yet, but already darkness was creeping in the hallway; it was flowing from the high ceiling and running down the walls, enclosing me within a shadowy trap.

I groped for my wand with trembling hands; having found it hanging from the wide ribbon I had for a belt, in a thin sheath hidden in a fold of my dress, I waved it brusquely around the hallway. At my command, the torches suddenly burst into life. Great yellow flames sprang from them and rose high, licking the white walls and forcing the shadows to an abrupt retreat.

I inhaled deeply and felt the knot in the pit of my stomach unclenching. Gripping my wand tightly, I turned my back on the now-illuminated hallway and proceeded to climb the marble staircase.

I had intended at first to take a look around the house, but I was tired and a little scared by the idea of going alone in a big unknown place, when it was already so dark I had to light up the torches on my way. In the flickering light of the burning torches, the dullest things had an eerie and often ominous appearance; an innocently undulating curtain seemed about to reveal the dark, menacing shape of a mysterious monster, and the creaking of the parquet under my foot sounded like a derisive snigger.

My heart was beating wildly by the time I reached what was unmistakably the bedroom. I almost rushed inside the room in my haste to escape the gloomy corridor and slammed the door behind me, leaning against it as I tried hard to bring my breathing back to a normal rate.

My suitcase was waiting for me at the foot of a wide bed; at a few feet from it, a large trunk – even bigger than my own Beauxbâtons trunk – lay abandoned on the floor. I approached it curiously and read on the label: _From the house of Godric's Hollow._

Godric's Hollow… It sounded like the name of a village. The house of Godric's Hollow? Doubtless it was Potter's former home… The trunk didn't belong to me; it must have been his. Lestrange had obviously had his things sent from his old house to the new one.

A loud crack suddenly sounded into the bedroom, startling me so badly I screamed in shock. Wheeling around, I found myself face to face with a very old house-elf, wearing an immaculate tea towel wrapped around its thin figure like a toga, along with an expression of utter disgust.

"Where's Master James?" it demanded in a croaky voice, without so much as a preliminary hello.

Saying I was surprised by its tone of voice would be an understatement. Never before I had been addressed with so little respect by a house-elf; the old house-elf of the Syrnac family, Lali, was quite informal with me, but in a motherly sort of way. Otherwise, I had scarcely met before a house-elf who would speak without being asked to, or who wouldn't bow whenever they found themselves in a wizard's or witch's presence.

"And who are you, exactly?" I asked coldly.

Being scorned by wizards ten years older than I was – and ten times richer – was one thing; being shown the same disdain by a _house-elf_ was another.

"I am Pomy," spat the house-elf, by no means impressed by my sudden coolness. "I'm Master James and Mistress Lily's obedient servant. You –" The house-elf glared at me in deepest loathing. "You are a _usurper!_"

I bit my lip. The house-elf was so coarsely provoking me that I would have felt humiliated to fall into its trap and get angry. On the other hand, being nice and polite would give the creature a feeling of superiority, which would make me lose every last bit of authority I still possessed.

"Very well, Pomy," I said calmly but without smiling. "I assume you are talking about my husband when you say 'Master James'. Your Master is away."

Pomy's big round eyes narrowed until they were reduced to two slits. Its suspicious expression was so exaggerated that I was tempted to burst out laughing – which would have been the quickest way to definitively alienate its affections.

"Where?" it questioned sharply.

"That is none of your business," I answered airily while sitting on the bed and negligently smoothing the front of my dress. "And you seem to lack activity for a house-elf just arrived in a new house. Is the kitchen clean and ready to be used?"

The house-elf's eyes shot wide open again in indignation.

"Pomy will take her orders from Master James only!" it screeched.

"Then I can't see why you would spend more time in this bedroom," I retorted icily, dropping my voice to contrast with the elf's noisy anger. "Now please relieve me of your presence or I'll use my wand."

The elf looked at me in hatred again.

"You is a Death Eater," she accused.

And she Disapparated with another crack.

I didn't know what a Death Eater was, though I had no trouble in guessing it must have been an insult – probably the worst insult this house-elf could have come up with. I was more worried by the fact that I had a new enemy, in the person of the house-elf Pomy – the only creature who could have helped me to transform this sinister house into my home. I heaved an exasperated sigh. _How _was I supposed to find my place in a world where everybody either belittled me or hated me – or, in the case of my husband himself, felt both ways – without even knowing me?

I would have to tame that elf – or, failing that, subdue her. Only she didn't seem compelled to obey me by any enchantment, and I could hardly _hex_ her into working for me.

On the other hand, I could –

I felt a thrill of excitement as I realised there was a way for me to win her devotion. It would be long, but it would work in the end. I wasn't in a hurry; I was bound to Potter for the rest of my life, after all.

My heart had lifted at the thought, and I was considerably cheered up as I went into the small bathroom adjacent to the bedroom in order to undress; it was still early, but I had no intention of spending the rest of the afternoon in my wedding dress.

Once I had showered and put on my favourite worn-off robes, in which I was as comfortable as if I was wearing pyjamas, I settled in front of a huge mahogany desk with the intention to write to Aimée. Unfortunately, the desk was much too big and too high for me to use it easily; once I was seated in the too-low chair, I could barely reach the drawers on either side of me even when I extended my arm as far as possible.

This desk was the reflection of the house: unwelcoming and forbidding. Every single object in this house seemed eager to show me how out of place I was here.

I finally gave up and went to sit cross-legged on the bed. I had taken out of my suitcase a scroll of parchment and a quill; the parchment was waiting, spread in my lap, while I distractedly ran the fluffy end of the quill along my jawbones as I searched for the right words. I didn't want Aimée to imagine I was being abused – at only the mention of "arranged marriage", she would picture a drunkard hitting me savagely and starving me to death. My Aimée…(1)

_Dear Aimée,_

_It's my second day here and, as promised, I'm writing to explain everything. You know that thing I was telling you last month, about me having now no more than a famous name? Well, it seems that I wasn't the only one to think that way. An English pure-blood, named Lestrange, thought I had a pretty name and I would make a good bride for one of his protégés. You know how old-fashioned those pure-blood families are; they're obsessed with lineage. _

_Anyway, my uncle agreed to that alliance and they both arranged my wedding with this acquaintance of Lestrange's, James Potter. I could have found worse, to tell you the truth: he's young and not at all bad-looking. I guess I just have to get used to the idea of not being a Syrnac anymore!_

_I got married today; the weather was dreadful, and it was a pity, because my dress was quite pretty. I would've liked to have you at my side, though… I always thought you would be my bridesmaid for my wedding. Ah well, we'll make up for it when it's your turn to get married!_

_That's all, really. I know it seems pretty huge, but believe me, it's not. It's a very old custom in my parents' social class. Of course it's a bit unsettling to find myself married at seventeen, but at least I have escaped Tinville, and I won't have to worry about my future anymore. Besides, if I'm beaten or manhandled or anything of the sort, I'm sure you'll come to rescue me. Really, I am not worried._

_How is life at Beauxbâtons? How is everybody surviving without Maxime? Do you think you'll be able to come to see me during the Toussaint holidays? _

_Please answer me as fast as possible; I'm eagerly waiting for news from the school._

_Kisses,_

_Marie-Antoinette._

I paused as I thought of adding a sentence about Olivier. I hesitantly wrote a few words in a post-scriptum, then, coming to an abrupt decision, I crossed the beginning of my sentence before vanishing it with my wand. What was the point in re-opening a fresh wound? There was nothing I could do anyway… Except forget.

I rolled the letter into a tight scroll and closed it by piercing it with one of my hairpins; I couldn't muster the energy of sealing it with a complicated spell. I tossed the letter across the room and it landed with a dull thud on the mahogany desk.

I leant back on the bed and contemplated the ceiling. My life as a married woman had taken quite a wrong start: I had been abandoned by my husband in a hostile house – my _home –_ and I had been treated with very little respect by the only servant the house had.

On the other hand, I had easily repelled a Legilimency aggression and I had beaten its caster in a verbal duel afterwards.

I couldn't help smiling. Quite a lot of defeats, but at least two victories…

* * *

A violent thunderbolt shook the whole house and I sat bolt upright, my heart beating wildly. I must have fallen asleep while waiting for my husband to return; I looked wildly all around me, but he was nowhere to be found. I was alone. 

I don't really know what folly seized my whole being then; I was suffocating and the only coherent thought remaining in my panic-stricken mind was the urge to get out of the bedroom, to escape the air heavy with the scent of burnt wax. I feverishly groped my way to the door; finally feeling under my palm the cool porcelain of the door handle, I roughly turned it and wrenched the door open, before dashing into the dark corridor.

I was running, blinded by an unexplained fear, not knowing where I was heading or how I would find my way back to the bedroom – without lights and without wand. I didn't care. I just wanted to get out. I think I screamed in fright when a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the corridor, quickly followed by another thunderbolt that seemed to echo in my whole body.

My hand found the banister of the marble staircase and I ran down the stairs. The torches had been extinguished a long time ago, and as I stepped into the hallway, the grandfather clock chimed. It was ten o'clock.

The cold was bitter in the hallway. I didn't linger there and immediately walked to the garden door, which was shuddering under the violent assault of the wind. Rain was slapping harshly the glass panes, making them rattle in their frame.

I seized the handles on both sides of the door and pulled with as much strength as I could muster.

The wind rushed in, enveloped me in its immense cold hands and forcefully dragged me outside. I stepped on the terrace and I stood there, lost in the middle of the wild ballet of the dead leaves, flying, swirling, rising high in the air before being hurled to the ground again. My robes were billowing around my legs and my hair whipped my face. Large raindrops were hitting my face, drenching my robes and sticking them to my body.

I was cold, but I stayed there. The furious wind was strangely purifying. The roar of the tempest filled my ears and drowned my mind in an eerie trance. But, most of all, the sight of battling trees kept me rooted to the ground. What I thought was a garden was in fact a small wood; a bunch of dark wild trees, growing so close to one another that there was no grass at their feet. They were fiercely hitting each other, flinging their branches in the moaning wind and bending until their great wooden body creaked and threatened to break in two.

I stood in the storm for a long time, watching my wild and hateful garden.

I would start with the garden.  
_

* * *

__(1) "My Aimée": aimée means "beloved" in French._


	5. A Black Ray of Sunlight

**A/N: I'm sorry for the delay, I'm currently struggling against a quite ugly case of writer's block. Having writer's block when you have four  
stories running isn't a nice thing at all. **

**Amazon101: **Thanks, I'm happy you liked it :). The 'arranged marriage' storyline can be such a cliché sometimes...

**Linwe Amandil: **Here you go! I'm very happy you like the story. Sorry for the long wait!

**Gwinna: **I love Marie-Antoinette's character too, and I agree, we don't see many shy heroines in fanfiction. What a shame, isn't it:) James isn't the cruel sort (except to certain persons cough Snape cough), but he's quite hurt right now. He won't intentionally hurt her, but -- ah. And no, I don't know anyone called Marie-Antoinette, but in old-fashioned noble families, you can imagine the parents would be eager to give their child a queen's name.

**Nutellamäedchen: **Hello, my favourite reviewer! I particularly enjoyed writing Bellatrix and Marie-Antoinette's verbal fight, too. As for the rest of the chapter... It IS designed to be depressing! But don't worry, there will be lighter moments in the story. Hope you'll like this chapter too!

**Jasu:** I love getting new readers :D. Here is the next chapter, I hope you won't be disappointed.

And now, enjoy!

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**Chapter Four: A Black Ray of Sunlight**

_I was early. None of them had arrived yet. A few grey-faced, shabby-looking wizards were sitting at the bar, taking long sips from their drinks. The barman was vigorously rubbing a glass with a cloth that had been white once, seemingly absorbed in his cleaning, but his small eyes kept darting nervously in all directions. It was seven in the evening; the miserable pub wasn't filled yet with its usual crowd of workers in search of a respite from the greyness, the hunger, and the unexplained disappearances._

_I caught a few suspicious glances shot in my direction. Since the laws on purity of blood, wizards had developed a strange ability to spot pure-bloods stranded in shabby areas where only half-bloods dwelled, and all the disguises in the world couldn't dupe their newly-acquired instinct. I refused to meet their eyes and concentrated on the whisky I had ordered. The liquid was acrid and quite foul-tasting, but the other customers swallowed it without batting an eyelid. Alcohol was welcome in those days, even if it was to be found in an adulterated Firewhisky._

_The bell hanging above the door rang as a portly silhouette rushed into the pub, bringing in with them a blast of icy cold wind and a few swirling snowflakes. The man lowered his hood to reveal the anxious face of my friend Peter Pettigrew. Voldemort's victory had brought a few nasty changes in his physical aspect: he was still quite chubby, but greyish bags had formed under his eyes, giving him the sad look of a beaten dog. His hair was already getting sparse, and his hands were often shaking uncontrollably, making me suspect he had gotten used to drinking._

_Peter looked around and spotted me, sitting at a table in a distant corner of the pub, and a cheery smile illuminated his dirty features. He made his way to my table and sat opposite me._

"_Padfoot," he said in a low voice. "It's been a long time."_

"_Too long," I agreed. _

_Oh yes, too long. Almost two months since the last Marauders meeting. Oh, how I missed the Marauders' time… Remus and Peter were confined to the shabbiest towns because of their origins, while James and I were forced to live with Voldemort's court. The reason why Voldemort had spared our lives, when he must have suspected our allegiance to the Order _—_ and how many had died because of a simple suspicion? _—_ was a mystery to me. His pure-blood obsession alone couldn't justify taking the risk of letting James and I walk free. _

"_You were able to leave Dark Town unnoticed?" asked Peter._

"_Yes… They're preventing half-bloods coming into the town, but they're not preventing pure-bloods coming out of it. Not yet," I added, a little bitterly. _

"_Do be careful," said Peter softly. "A pure-blood was slaughtered not far from here last week. The murderers were never found, but the Death Eaters had ten people tortured and killed in reprisals."_

_I let out a low whistle. "Pure-bloods aren't loved in this area, are they?" I muttered._

"_Put yourself in our position," said Peter, not unkindly. "Seeing well-fed and well-dressed pure-bloods strolling about, when we can barely manage to conjure enough food to forget about our hunger, is enough to make anyone lose their grip… We can't use as much magic as we'd like to; Remus said the magical energy is saturated by the Death Eaters. We're hungry, and cold, and we have to work hard in You-Know-Who's newly-built factories."_

"_Since when are you saying 'You-Know-Who'?" I asked sharply, startled by this sudden change of attitude. "Since when are you afraid of saying Voldemort's _—_"_

"_Shh!" said Peter frantically. "We could be heard! What are you thinking? There are spies everywhere, ready to turn you in to the Death Eaters! Saying You-Know-Who's name is enough to get me killed!"_

_Indeed, I caught an old witch staring at the pair of us suspiciously from behind her glass full of dark red liquid; the wizards sitting at the table next to ours had stopped talking, and I could tell they were listening intently._

"_Okay," I whispered soothingly. "Sorry. By the way, I wanted to ask you… Have you seen James recently?"_

_Peter looked puzzled. "James? No. Why would I see him?"_

"_I haven't seen him in a week," I said. "I'm worried about him."_

_James had disappeared right after his wedding, and hadn't been seen ever since. He wasn't at the new house Lestrange had had built for him: I had checked… The image of a smooth and pale oval face, illuminated by two beautiful blue eyes, was lingering in a corner of my mind. _'No, Mr. Black, I'm sorry, but my husband isn't home. No, I haven't seen him…'

_I replayed in my mind, perhaps for the hundredth time today, the short conversation I had had with the young French girl; and I wondered what had driven me to talk to her the way I had: I didn't know her at all, and she was so much younger than me. So much younger than James._

_I slightly shook my head to dissipate the memory of the new Mrs. Potter's frail silhouette, standing alone on the threshold of her imposing house, her eternal sweet smile on her young _—_ oh, so young _—_ face. Peter was watching me with wide, fearful eyes._

"_Why would James disappear?" he whispered. "Shouldn't he be with Lily and Harry?"_

_I realised with a small shock that neither Peter nor Remus knew what had happened to the once happy Potter family; and James was probably going to show up any minute now _—_ he never missed Marauders meetings _—_ his wound still bleeding, to face their questions… _

"_Something happened to Lily," I said curtly. "When Moony arrives, I'll tell you."_

"_You can start now, then," said a hoarse voice on my left. I started and wheeled about, my right hand reflexively plunging into my pocket in search for my wand. But the man standing beside our table threw back his hood, revealing the marked face of Remus Lupin._

_I was shocked to see how much his new life had affected him, too. His weary eyes glinted with the anxiety of a hunted beast, and two bitter lines marked the corners of his mouth, fixing his face in an expression of constant sorrow. Remus looked much older than twenty-four._

_I resisted the urge to rise and hug my visibly exhausted friend; such warm behaviour could only be seen as suspicious in this new world Voldemort had given birth to, a world where there were no such things as friends _—_ only powerful wizards and their servants. Remus imperceptibly bowed his head as he saw me restrain my spontaneous gesture, a small smile illuminating his tired face. _

_He sat down next to Peter. "So, what were you saying about Lily?" he asked._

_I summed up in a few sentences how James' life had been shattered in less than two hours _—_ how he had been forced to divorce, how Lily's wand had been snapped in front of him, thus depriving his wife of the magical protection she needed so badly, how Lily and Harry had been taken away from him, and lived now in a 'village for Mudbloods', somewhere in Great Britain…_

_When I fell quiet, none of them spoke up. And we were still enclosed in an appalled silence when one of the customers at the bar got to his feet and walked up to our table. A tired voice came from under the hood, which cast an impenetrable shadow upon the speaker's face:_

"_Padfoot, Moony, Wormtail… Good to see you all again."_

_And James, without waiting for an answer, sat down beside me._

-------------------------------

The morning after my wedding day was dull and grey, and the feeble light couldn't pierce the thick ceiling of dark leaves outstretched over my head as I walked into the Forest. The wind had ceased, leaving the trees bent and ruffled, and looking exhausted from their furious fight of the previous night. A few branches had been ripped off the tall trunks and blocked my way; I had to climb over them, and soon my old robes were torn and stained with dirt and wet humus.

I hadn't walked fifty feet into the wood before I met brambles: creeping all over the ground, rising in arcades and gathering in impenetrable bushes, they savagely defended the access to the depths of the forest. I knew it was pointless to try and force my way through the barrier of brambles; they would have held me captive in their minuscule but oddly solid claws, and I wouldn't have got out without reducing my robes to tatters.

Gardening is one of the few areas in which magic is sometimes helpless; Muggle and magical plants alike often show an impressive resistance to spells and charms, or have an unexpected reaction to them. In my garden, the brambles were so strong that most of my Weeding Spells merely bounced off them, only succeeding in arousing their anger. After receiving a particularly strong spell, a long branch pulled itself out of the thick bushes and lashed in my direction like a thorny tentacle, forcing me to perform a Shielding Charm that froze it in mid-air.

I was patient; after a few minutes of relentless struggling, as the forest was filled with sparks and beams of clear green light in front of which the dark plants angrily recoiled, the brambles finally parted, reluctantly clearing a small, narrow path which allowed me to walk through them and go further into the forest.

My crossing the field of brambles was almost eventless; almost, because as I was already far into the thick jumble of dark green leaves and thorny branches, one of them slyly went round my ankle and bit into the hem of my robes. I had to stop.

"Enough," I said annoyingly, shaking my foot to extricate it from the bramble's grip.

As the plant wouldn't budge, I swooped down and gave it a sharp tap.

"_Enough,_" I hissed through clenched teeth.

The branch slowly uncoiled itself from my ankle and retreated; and I wasn't interrupted again in my walk.

As soon as I reached the end of the brambles' territory, I heard the vicious plants rustling behind me as they quickly re-conquered the passageway I had forced them to open for me. I spun around, with the intention of hexing them — they would have to learn who was in command here — but froze halfway through the gesture of pulling out my wand when I felt a sudden burning sensation on the bare skin of my ankle.

I looked down: the ground, here, was covered in nettles. One of them was lazily caressing my skin, as if oblivious to the sharp pain it was causing me. I lowered my wand and with the tip of it lifted the head of the nettle, making the ungraceful cluster of greyish blossom swing like the beard of an old man.

"_Deracinis_", I said softly. The nettle quivered slightly as the green spell ran down its thin body, and then it fell down to the ground, uprooted.

I spent what felt like hours deracinating nettles; some of them were taller than me, and I couldn't make a move without brushing against one of the ugly plants. Soon the skin of my hands, neck and face burnt with scorching stings.

As I weeded, I progressed further into the forest. I could tell it used to be a neatly kept garden: a few wild bushes of flowers still stood here and there — oleanders, rhododendrons and azaleas — most of them half-suffocated by the brambles and the bindweed that slyly coiled itself up their exhausted bodies, before innocently presenting its white cones among the faded leaves of the dying bush. Holly and young ash trees were proliferating.

The light gradually increased into the clearing I was working in, giving me a faint idea of the time passing by. It had started raining dully when I finally straightened up, my back aching and sweat rolling in burning beads into my eyes. The clearing looked barely neater than when I had first stepped in: the nettles were still covering most of the damp ground, though many uprooted plants lay in heaps here and there. Looking around, I noticed for the first time that the ground dropped ahead of me, into a pond covered in aquatic weed. A young oak tree had fallen in the pond, probably brought down by the furious wind, and was rotting in the stagnant water.

I felt a great fatigue creep up my body at the mere thought of trying to pull the tree out of the pond. It must have been past midday now, and I was hungry. I had only eaten for breakfast the two apples Mélanie had stolen for me in the Beauxbâtons kitchen, three days ago — was it only three days? It felt like an eternity…

Giving in to my hunger, my exhaustion and my discouragement, I turned my back on the sinister pond with its tree rotting in it, like the corpse of a drowned man, and prepared to fight the brambles again in order to get out of the gloomy wood.

-------------------------------

Even the wildest of woods can be transformed into a decent garden; all I had to do was have to trees cut down, the weeds uprooted, and new plants settled here and there. Only I couldn't do it myself: it required a magical power I would never have, or a physical strength I certainly did not possess. I needed to hire professional gardeners. As I couldn't do anything of the sort since I was poorer than the spiteful house-elf who was the only other inhabitant of the house, I was reduced to weeding as much as I could—all day long. When Potter came back, I would be able to ask him the money I needed.

But a week went by without any sign of life from him. At first I couldn't help being relieved by this, as I didn't think I could take much more of cold hatred and scornful glares; and there was also, lingering in a corner of my mind, the fear of _what _Potter may do when he was finally alone with me. We were, after all, husband and wife. If he wanted to take his anger out on me at being forced to marry me, if he wanted to humiliate me a little further — hadn't Lestrange said, _'She's likely to do anything you want her to'_? — there would be nobody to stop him. Why would anybody stop him? It was _normal _he should act that way…

The mere thought sent chills up my spine, and I caught myself thanking the heavens he had been away during what should have been our wedding night. But after a few days, his absence became a real problem: the food I had found in the kitchen had run out, and nearly all my clothes were torn and dirty from my gardening. And I was knutless, unable to even buy the food I needed to survive, for it was quite advanced magic to conjure up food, and we had not covered that subject yet in Transfiguration. I started to consider bringing handfuls of nettles to the house and making soup with it.

At least, I thought quite bitterly, my supply of nettles was infinite.

I awoke at five a.m. on Toussaint Day. All week, I had been hoping Aimée would write back and bring me news from the outside world in my island of loneliness, and perhaps the hope of a near visit. I found myself straining my ears for the sound of a flapping of wings as I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, to eat the last bit of stale bread I had left. As I was afraid an owl would fail to find me if I was in the forest, I didn't go weeding that day, and I spent the morning going round the house and visiting every room, which took me a surprisingly long time.

I skipped lunch, preferring to keep the bowl of nettle soup I had left for my dinner. The soup was absolutely foul, as I was no cook and no one had ever taught me how to make a soup. But still, it was better than nothing at all.

Still hoping to receive an owl from Aimée, I went down to the terrace and quickly rid it of the weeds growing between the paving stones, before settling there with my back to the wall of the house, a book in my hands.

I had only brought the book down to distract myself from the constant worries plaguing my mind; I had never been a great reader. Therefore I was surprised to find that, imperceptibly, the book was dragging me further and further away from my grey reality… It was Marcel Pagnol's complete works; stories smelling of Provençal hills and scrubland heated by the summer sun, that took me far away from the sullen sky of Great Britain to a country where the sky was blue. A country that used to be mine.

The doorbell suddenly rang, sending a low-pitched note reverberating in the empty house. I started in surprise and annoyance as I was brutally pulled out of my book, but I didn't move at first; I must have been unconsciously expecting the sharp tapping noise of an elf's small feet hurrying towards the front door. But when the bell rang a second time, even more sinister than before, I came to my senses: I hadn't seen Pomy the house-elf since our tumultuous first encounter, and it wasn't likely that she would run to open a door in the absence of her Master. I got to my feet and regretfully crossed the threshold into the black and white hallway.

The bell rang a third time and I quickened my pace, smoothing my dress in a mechanical gesture as I went; I didn't run, because I didn't want to be red and out of breath when I would open the door — or at least that's the reason I gave myself. Actually I was half-hoping whoever was waiting outside would leave before I had the time to open the door. I was torn between my revulsion of loneliness and my fear of what other misfortune the future would bring me.

I finally reached the door and opened it, just in time to see a man cloaked in dark purple walking down the stone steps, probably tired of waiting. However, doubtlessly alerted by the slight creaking noise of the door opening, he paused and turned around to face me again.

He was Sirius Black.

"Well, hello, Mrs. Potter!" he called joyously, as he climbed the steps two at a time to join me under the porch. "I thought nobody was home."

"I'm sorry, I was in the garden," I said apologetically.

Strangely enough, my apprehension had disappeared as soon as I had recognised him. I was glad to see him; he was the only human being who had been kind to me since my arrival in Great Britain. Even now, he was smiling warmly down at me; I smiled back. A real smile, this time.

"I was wondering if I could see James," he said, tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his robes in a rather nonchalant stance. "Is he here?"

"No, Mr. Black, I'm sorry," I said again, trying with all my might to conceal the bitterness that had filled my mouth at the mention of Potter's name. "My husband isn't home."

A worried glint came into his grey eyes, and I saw him cast a quick — very quick — look behind me, into the darkening hallway. I pulled the door until it was barely ajar, hiding the bareness of my home as I would have hidden a hideous scar.

"Can you please tell me where he is?" Black went on in the same warm, friendly tone. "I really need to see him."

I shook my head. "I haven't seen him in a long time," I said with a contrite smile. "I'm sorry I can't help you. I would like to invite you in, but the house isn't ready yet to receive visitors."

"That's all right, I don't mind," he said with a short laugh. "But if it suits you, I'd like to have you and James at dinner sometime. No, to hell with James, just you. That'll teach him not to leave you alone without telling you where he goes."

His smile had grown somewhat mischievous, and a joyful spark was now dancing in his eyes, reminding me irresistibly of the look on the face of my old dog when I used to play with him, back at the Syrnac manor. I couldn't hold back the grin that crept up my face at his words.

"Come on, say yes," he insisted, looking delighted by my reaction. "I'm bored stiff in the Most Ancient and Respectable House of Black, I could use a little company."

"I can't accept, Mr. Black," I said, unable to stop smiling, in spite of all my efforts to hide again behind my serious mask — it was dangerous for me to be seen smiling at a man's jokes in my husband's absence, so soon after my wedding. "I'm sorry," I added, and I meant it. "I'm really sorry, but it's not possible at the moment."

He heaved an exaggerated sigh and said dismissively, in such an overdramatic tone that I almost laughed aloud:

"Fine, as you wish, milady. Let me rot all alone in my empty house, with a bunch of portraits and an old elf-house as sole company. I won't insist."

He grinned down at me again.

"Well, I'm not going to disturb you any longer," he said lightly. "As much as I'd like to continue talking with you, I have an appointment in a few minutes' time. Thank you, Mrs. Potter."

"You are welcome, Mr. Black."

He bowed his head and took a few steps backwards, turning up the collar of his cloak against the biting wind as he did so.

"I will see you soon, Mrs. Potter."

I smiled as an answer, and he took it as the signal to leave; walking down the stone steps leading to the front door, he Disapparated in a swirl of his dark purple cloak.

I said in a hushed voice to the empty street, "I hope so…"

-------------------------------

Sirius Black's visit had been the first real ray of sunlight in the days following my wedding; curiously enough, it filled me with a boiling energy I had never known before: I had always had a tendency to let myself being carried away by the coming events, as a fish would let itself being carried by violent currents. Even in the past days, my constant gardening had only been a half-hearted attempt to distract myself from my loneliness. But Sirius Black, I had yet to learn, had a knack for bursting in the most well-established routines and putting them upside-down in a snap of his fingers. We had only exchanged a few words — he had barely wrung a couple of smiles out of me — and already he had made the fish want to swim against the current…

Still cruelly lacking in money, I could only dream of what I wanted to do with the house and the garden. But dream I did: until the early hours of the morning, I covered rolls of parchment of my cursive handwriting. A thousand projects were forming in my head, fragile and quivering in the maze of my imagination, but still bearing a hope I hadn't felt in a long time.

Flashes of what the Syrnac manor used to be, before we had to abandon it, were coming back to my memory. I began to draw; I wasn't a good artist, but I had had lessons during my childhood and I knew the rules of proportions and perspective, and it was enough for the practical mind I had. The Syrnac gardens in particular were coming back to life under my hesitant fingers.

On November the 2nd, Day of the Dead, I was to be found on the terrace again, as I took a little break from my planning and writing. I had found a chalky stone at the feet of the tall trees bordering the terrace, and I was idly sketching on the dark red paving stones. For the first time since I had set foot in Great Britain, a shy, wet sun was shining in the pale blue sky; therefore I was all the more annoyed when a small shadow was cast upon the paving stones I was drawing on, blocking out the pale and fresh sunlight.

"Qu'est-ce que —"

But my question was answered even before being asked, for the thing that had momentarily obstructed the light came into view immediately: an owl landed heavily on the chalk-covered stone in front of me, looking tired and thoroughly disgruntled, and extended its leg so that I could untie the letter it was carrying.

As I unrolled the scroll of parchment, I automatically glanced at the signature and my heart leapt in my chest: it was, finally, Aimée's response.

_Marie-Antoinette,_

_I have to admit you almost got me with your "this is normal, it happens every day" rubbish. Now, this is the stupidest thing I have ever had the misfortune to read. First, because it's not that frequent, especially when the bride-to-be is seventeen. SEVENTEEN for crying out loud! Second, because anyway, arranged marriages did happen quite often… TWO CENTURIES AGO. Even the oldest and rustiest noble families DON'T do that anymore. And third – because you tried to make me believe that Lestrange character was just a random Rosbif (1), in search of a good bride for a young friend of his. Well, Missy, I just read the NEWSPAPERS in which our beloved Minister, Dunderhead Draconnier, was rambling on about how proud he was that a young lady from one of the most ancient French wizarding families had been chosen to, I quote, "build an alliance with Mr. Rodolphus Lestrange, Minister for Magic in Great Britain, and powerful among the Dark Lord's followers." HA! 'Some guy called Lestrange', my foot!_

_All right. Now I got mad at you, it's time I should start crying, right? Toine, this is the saddest thing ever! If you had seen the look on Olivier's face when he read that article in the newspaper! He was livid; the poor bloke is still head over heels about you, you know. And now all those asses who have never talked to you in their lives start saying things like, 'Oh yes, Syrnac, she was a nice girl, she was, she lent me a quill once!' INCLUDING that idiotic bulldog face, Alice Brocard, the one who kept spitting on your nobility particle, remember? I almost cursed her._

_Anyway, without Maxime, everything's going to the dogs. No surprise, eh? Tinville doesn't even know where the kitchens are (though he should've asked Mélanie, since she's spending half of her life in there). He forbade me to go to Great Britain during the Toussaint holidays, of course – stupid mean excuse for a human being! Well, he can't prevent me from going to see you at Christmas. You-Know-Who himself won't stop me! And when I get there, your 'husband' had better watch his backside if he doesn't want it to be kicked._

_Okay, now I've ranted over two pages, let's say the most important _—_ I miss you horribly, and the thought that you're all alone in that wretched country makes my blood boil. Hold on, my Toine, I'm coming as soon as possible and I won't leave you ever. In the meantime, if you are feeling sad or discouraged or abandoned, owl me at ONCE. Maybe we can try to arrange a conversation by Floo network some day. I know you're braver than all those pompous English penguins. Show them that. Show them you're not the little French girl they can boss around. And if your so-called husband bothers you, hit him on the top of his head with the frying pan._

_With love,_

_Aimée_

_P.S: Here's a message from Olivier. I had to glue the quill to his hand and tie him up to the armchair to force him to add a few lines; I hope you appreciate my efforts! A._

I laughed aloud as I reached the end of the letter, inwardly thanking the heavens for giving me a friend like Aimée. This letter was brimming over with ardour and kindness in such a way that I could almost hear her raging, promising and comforting. I still had a smile on my face when I proceeded to Olivier's message, written in a taller and narrower handwriting.

_Dear Marie-Antoinette,_

_I suspect Aimée told you many things about me — maybe that I was planning to go to England and kill that Potter character in a breathtaking duel, as she tried to convince me I should for the past three days. I was tempted to follow her advice, if truth must be told. The idea that you're at the mercy of a man you don't know at all drives me crazy; but I know you. I know you're an extraordinary girl. You're a born queen, Marie-Antoinette. You can conquer them all, I trust you. I also trust you for keeping me a small place in your affections, and as soon as I'm free to come over, I will, because I won't stand not being able to talk to you and listen to you very long. You're one of a kind, and I really miss you._

_With all my love,_

_Olivier._

I stared at the parchment for a long time, the smile gone from my face. What could have possibly given him these ideas about me? A born queen… An extraordinary girl… I allowed a smirk to distort my lips. What a queen, dressed in a school uniform because she didn't have any better outfit, and eating nettle soup she was forced to make it herself…

I reread the last line, and this time I felt my eyes water. I shut them tightly, not wanting the tears to fall. He asked me to keep him a place in my affections, when he already had all my heart.

As I sat there, my head bent and my thumb softly stroking the letter coming from the two people I cared for the most — the only two people who really cared for me — I heard the front door opening with a creaking sound.

I slowly raised my head and turned around; heavy footsteps were now echoing dully on the tiled floor of the hallway. I knew only two people who would have entered the house without ringing the bell first.

One was Lestrange.

The other was Potter.

In either case, I could only expect another verbal fight.

I quickly rolled the letter back into a tight scroll and stuffed it in a pocket of my robes, then, biting my lip nervously, I stood, pushed the garden door open and stepped into the hallway to meet him — whoever hewas.

--------------------------------------------------------------

_(1)Rosbif: Just as the French are called 'Frogs' by the British, the British are called 'Roast beefs' (in French, Rosbifs) by the French. When talking about cute little nicknames…_

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**A/N: Sorry for the gardening lesson:) I had to illustrate the "I would start with the garden" of the previous chapter. **


	6. Two Elves

_**From Chapter Four:**_

_I heard the front door opening with a creaking sound._

_I slowly raised my head and turned around; heavy footsteps were now echoing dully on the tiled floor of the hallway. I knew only two people who would have entered the house without ringing the bell first._

_One was Lestrange._

_The other was Potter._

_In either case, I could only expect another verbal fight._

_I quickly rolled the letter back into a tight scroll and stuffed it in a pocket of my robes, then, biting nervously my lip, I stood, pushed the garden door open and stepped into the hallway to meet him — whoever he was._

* * *

**Chapter Five: Two Elves**

The late morning light filtered through the half-opened front door and outlined the man's figure as he slowly shrugged off his cloak. He stood in the middle of the sunlit hallway, a lonely shadow in the dazzling whiteness of the walls and tiles, and his darkened features were indistinct. But his slumped shoulders and his hesitant gestures, as if he was struggling to recognise his surroundings through a thick fog, didn't leave any doubt about his identity.

"Mr. Potter," I called.

He spun around at the sound of my voice, and though I still couldn't make out the details of his face, I was able to feel his eyes fixed on me — as if his gaze was a thin thread joining us, and tensing a little more with every passing second.

"Yes," he said curtly. "What do you want?"

The sunlight reverberating on the white walls was still dazzling me, and I dimly felt I was in an inferior position: his face was hidden from me in the shadows, while mine was in full view and exposed to scrutinizing. I mechanically raised my wand and the front door closed with a brusque clatter, blocking out the light.

Now we stood in the cool, half-lit hallway, eyeing each other like a couple of cats preparing to fight — and in the ensuing silence that Potter didn't break, I was able to study his face for as long as I pleased.

He looked tired; he was distinctly paler than the last time I had seen him, and there were greyish bags under his eyes. For one second I though that maybe his current state of weariness would make him more receptive to what I could only call my grievances; but this tiny hope was quickly stifled as we finally locked gazes. There was no pity in his eyes, or even defeat. He was as much on his guards as he had been on the first day.

"Unless you have something urgent to tell me," he brusquely said, "I'd rather you wouldn't keep me waiting here any longer; I need some rest."

I felt a blush creeping up my neck and cheeks.

"I'm sorry," I answered automatically, and my voice sounded horribly high-pitched to my own ears; inwardly cursing my childish reaction, I forced myself to speak more calmly. "I do have something important to tell you, but it can wait until you have had some rest. I have work to do in the garden anyway, so if you'd rather I would talk to you later…"

My voice trailed away as he nodded, visibly uninterested; he had shrugged off his cloak and held it in his hands, unsure where to put it, and several seconds of embarrassed silence came and went before I remembered there would be no servant hurrying to take his cloak from his hands.

"Let me take care of this," I offered, closing in a few steps the distance stretching between the pair of us.

He blinked, apparently not expecting me to come so close to him, and I even thought I caught a slight gesture of his free hand; a gesture that was not unlike those of priests of another era, trying to repel demons. I immediately slowed down and eyed him questioningly.

He seemed to change his mind and wordlessly handed me his cloak, which I took without touching him.

"Thank you," he said with visible effort.

"You're welcome," I answered just as stiffly.

I averted my eyes and wheeled around, experiencing a cowardly relief at the fact that I had a pretext for turning my back on him; I quickly made my way to the living room with the intention of dropping the cloak on the back of a chair, and as I walked away, I heard Potter turning on his heels as well and starting to ascend the stairs that led to the first floor. The wood banister creaked every time he grabbed it, as if he was leaning his full weight on it with every step…

The cloak had been designed to completely envelop a man of tall stature, and since the material was heavy with melted snow and mud, I found myself struggling to fold it; and my feeling of helplessness was growing with every second of that humiliating task. It was not my job to fold cloaks and put them away.

"Damned be that house-elf," I growled irritably.

I had grown to develop an inexpressible hatred towards the house-elf Pomy, and as days came and went I tended more and more to give her the full responsibility of nearly all my misfortunes. If only the wretched creature had been willing to help me, I wouldn't have most of my clothes soiled and torn, my stomach wouldn't be contracting painfully with hunger, and I could have started transforming the house into a place I would not be ashamed of calling my home.

She had to obey me. That was an absolute necessity: how could I ever hold my head high in this world, if I wasn't even able to command a miserable creature such as that old elf? I had given this problem a lot of thought, and I had finally come to elaborate a plan in order to bend her to my will. In fact, the key to all my domestic problems should be arriving shortly, as soon as my Uncle and former guardian remembered to send me the rest of my things; unfortunately, knowing the walking barrel of wine that was my last living relative, that could take a long time.

The cloak was now hanging, limp and wet, on the back of a low armchair. I knew it wouldn't fail to leave a damp and muddy spot on the grey velvet — but then again, I didn't care; I hated that furniture. Rubbing my hands together in an attempt to regain some warmth in my fingers, which had grown cold and numb from handling the damp garment, I quickly walked out of the sinister living room and automatically turned right towards the garden door. I was, once again, postponing the moment when I would have to face my husband again.

The scrolls of parchment on which I had been working in the morning, before the arrival of Aimée's owl, were still piled up in a corner of the terrace, in the shadow of a low stone wall that shielded them from the occasional gusts of wind. I swooped down and gathered the scrolls in my hands, pressing them against my chest as they threatened to spill out of my arms and fall to the ground, and sat on the low wall. The wind was slightly stronger and it blew in my back, playing with my hair and with the folds of my garden robes, and causing the most slender trees to swing slightly while their last leaves rustled in worried whispers. The light was slowly decreasing as heavy clouds rolled once again in the November sky, mercilessly stifling the last pale beams of timid sunlight.

The parchments gathered against my chest quivered as the wind bit at their edges and threatened to tear them away from the shield of my folded arms. A droplet of rain fell, causing the words written in black ink to show through the small ring of damp parchment.

Then the rain started to pour.

I felt my lips stretching into a strange, bitter smirk, as I leant back to allow the shower to drench the scrolls of parchment on which I had been working tirelessly for the last few days. I threw my head back, my eyes closed, and the cold water ran down my temples, cheeks and chin, trickling down my throat before stopping as it met the material of my robes. On my lap, the parchments were quickly reduced to a shapeless mass of soaked and greyish paper under the relentless pounding of the autumnal rain.

I stood up again, causing the damp parchments to roll off my lap and fall to the ground with a dull thud. I headed for the door without the slightest haste in spite of the rain, leaving my notes behind. Soon the parchment would be torn in small bits by the violence of the shower, the ink would leak out of it in lazy streams, and tomorrow the wind would have vanished the last remains of my sterile fancies.

The time of dreams and vague projects was over. I knew what I had to do, and I didn't need wasting more time scribbling away on parchments while deluding myself in thinking such an activity was productive.

* * *

The rain was angrily pounding on the roof and slapping the windowpanes while I was enjoying a long hot shower, a few minutes after I had come back from the terrace. The house around me was as silent as usual, no sound betraying the presence of another human being; yet I knew Potter had entered our bedroom at some point — the glaring absence of the huge 'Godric's Hollow' trunk was enough of an indication.

I had been relieved to see he had moved to another room; he had probably settled in the room adjoining the small office in the north corridor. Those were the only rooms that were decently furnished on this floor, the conjugal bedroom aside. We could lead separate lives, barely seeing each other while living in the same house, and that suited me perfectly; I hardly needed a brooding husband on my hands.

A last glance in the mirror left me quite satisfied with my appearance. My last set of blue silk robes had a certain elegance, especially after I had cut off the Beauxbâtons crest and widened the collar a little to lessen their schoolish look. Tucking my wand in my thin leather belt, I turned my back on my reflection and walked out of the bedroom.

Someone had lit the torches of the north corridor; the usually bare walls were alive with dancing shadows, cast there by the flickering flames that attempted, without much success, to give some cheerfulness to the white and bare loneliness of the corridor. I was soon in sight of the double door that led to the small office, and upon catching a high-pitched voice filtering through this door, I slowed down and paused to listen.

"…saved some tea from the kitchen, Master James," squealed the voice. "Strange girl made tea only twice since she arrived. She come from a barbaric country. Her voice is weird. Pomy don't like her."

I shook my head in annoyance. Pomy was there; this wasn't going to make my task any easier. Deciding I had heard enough, I pushed the right side of the door open and it swung soundlessly on its hinges, just in time for me to hear Potter's voice answering the elf.

"Thank you, but I don't want tea. Can you just leave me alone for a second?"

I took in the scene in front of me. The room was small, and since the window was boarded it was drowned in a darkness that hid the details of the walls and furniture from me. In the chimney a fire was roaring, creating an island of golden light in that sea of damp blackness, and the high flames threw a sporadic light illuminating Potter's sharp profile. He was sitting into a low armchair that looked every bit as uncomfortable as the furniture of the living room, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his clasped hands. His eyes were masked by the golden gleams dancing on the lenses of his glasses. Pomy was standing in front of the fireplace, a long black poker in her tiny hands, and the look on her ugly wrinkled face was half-concerned, half-disapproving. As I looked, unseen by any of them, she snorted disbelievingly.

"Pomy know Master James," she said. Her shrill voice was starting to grate on my nerves. "Pomy helped raise him. Pomy know when he needs tea and when he don't, and I is going to get some for him."

Pomy resolutely turned away from her master and she caught sight of me at once, standing on the doorstep with a hand still pressed to the wooden pane of the door. Her enormous eyes immediately widened in outrage before narrowing again in aversion. Gripping her poker in both hands, she brandished it like a weapon, as if daring me to take a step closer to her beloved master.

"What you are doing here, sneaking around?" she squeaked, nearly spitting in disgust.

Potter's head jerked up and he half turned in his seat to see whom Pomy was talking to. Not even glancing at the seething house-elf, I slightly bowed my head at him and took two steps in the room, thus entering the pool of light.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you. I'd like to talk to you now."

I was almost startled at hearing the newfound confidence, bordering haughtiness, dripping from each of my words. Perhaps it was due to the desire to humble and put in her place the miserable creature threatening me with a poker — I didn't know, and I didn't waste time in wondering. Potter rose to his feet, his former lassitude vanishing from his face as his eyes met mine; his clenched jaw and thinning lips were enough to show he was readying himself for a verbal duel. I could have sworn I had caught a repressed gesture of his hand towards the wand tucked in his belt.

"You get out of my Master's room, you—"

"Pomy," Potter interrupted, averting his eyes to look down at the crouching house-elf. "Please go to the kitchen and make some tea for Miss de Syrnac and me."

I slightly bit my lip as I acknowledged the use of my maiden name. Fine; it wasn't as if I was keen on being called Potter, after all. As soon as it stayed between us…

The elf couldn't disobey a direct order from her master. She put back the poker against one of the stone pillars flanking the fireplace, and she did so with such brutality that it swayed and fell with a loud chiming as it hit the stone slab that replaced wooden boards in front of the hearth. Not bothering to stand it up again, she stormed out of the room, and we heard her cursing the 'strange girl' in the corridor before she disappeared with a crack.

"Why don't you sit down?"

My attention was brought back to the task at hand by Potter's voice. He had stepped back behind the low armchair he had been sitting in and, his hand resting on the back of it, was watching me enquiringly. I nodded.

"Thank you."

I took place in the armchair, as Potter walked round me and went to lean against the stone pillar on the right side of the fireplace. There was another seat in the room but he obviously preferred to be standing.

"So," he said curtly. "What is so important for me to hear?"

I ensconced myself in my armchair and gave him my long-prepared answer.

"I thought it was necessary to consult you," I said, enunciating every syllable carefully, "before I put into practice the plans I have for this house and its garden."

"There was absolutely no need to consult me for that," he immediately retorted. "Do whatever you want with the house or the garden. I'd rather stay out of it."

I clasped my hands together in my lap. He really could not have been clearer about not wanting to have anything to do with — us. Our house, our garden, everything that made of us a married couple. Did he really think I cared about that myself? Or was he so self-centred that he could not see I wasn't able to 'do whatever I wanted' on my own?

"I understand that you don't want to be bothered by domestic problems," I smoothly answered, careful not to let any of my annoyance appear on my face. "I am glad that you would trust me with the management of the house; but I'm afraid I cannot hire the needed workers without your help."

He looked at me blankly, clearly not understanding what I was talking about. I had to refrain from rolling my eyes.

"I will need a budget for that," I insisted. I really couldn't make myself clearer without being openly rude.

He blinked.

"You want money?" he asked in an even voice.

I felt a shameful blush creep up my neck and cheeks. Three words, and I was reduced to a beggar whining at him.

"To be crude, yes, I want money," I snapped as I reached the limit of my reserve of patience. "I'm not going to furnish this house or clear up the forest in the garden without having to pay people to do it."

"I got it," he said impatiently. "How much do you want?"

I was now boiling with anger; he might as well have asked what was the price for which I would agree to leave him alone. Abruptly rising from my armchair, I closed in three quick steps the short distance separating me from him. I caught again the repressed gesture of his right hand towards his wand as I halted to stand in front of him.

"You have no right to talk to me like that," I hissed in rage. The anger made my accent stronger than ever and the English words sounded unnaturally hard in my mouth.

"Don't I?" he replied coolly before I had the time to continue. "You come here and ask me for money; am I wrong? Or are you just angered because I don't use the proper words?"

I bit my lip hard, furious at myself for losing my grip on the situation. With a slight smirk, Potter turned away from me and idly dusted his shoulder that had been in contact with the mantelpiece.

"If you have nothing else to tell me, I suggest you get back to your room," he added, with a glance over his shoulder in my direction. "I don't have the time or energy to deal with adolescent existential crisis."

"How do you think I survived this week, Mr. Potter?" I shot at him. His comment had stung, and I was determined to bite back.

At my question, he turned again to face me, confusion visible on his features.

"Excuse me?" he slowly asked.

"How do you think I lived in your absence," I repeated, my voice trembling slightly with controlled fury. "Do you know how much food there was in the kitchen when you left me here?"

I was pleased to see him stiffening again. My last question seemed to make him a tad uncomfortable.

"You had a wand," he pointed out.

"But I never graduated," I completed in a low voice. "You do know that Conjuration and Advanced Transfiguration aren't taught before the middle of seventh year, don't you?"

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his cool confidence visibly melting at my words; and I caught a glint of something like shame in his eyes, behind the lenses of his glasses.

"Pomy was here," he objected; but even he sounded thoroughly unconvinced by this argument.

I smirked at the uncertainty in his voice.

"I'll take your word for it," I said coldly. "I haven't seen much of her."

He cast his eyes downwards and slightly shook his head, as if attempting to shake off a persisting nightmare, and yet again his features were tense with exhaustion. Leaning forward to rest his hand on the armrest of the armchair, he let himself collapse in the low seat, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I'm listening," he said at last.

I remained silent for a few seconds, hardly daring to believe that I had won, that he was now going to listen without interrupting or trying to ridicule me. Then I shook myself — the hardest part was done but I hadn't finished yet.

"I don't like this situation anymore than you do," I said more calmly. "But since there is nothing we can do about it, here is what I wanted to suggest."

He raised his head, silent and attentive.

"I am not going to get in your way," I enounced slowly. "You won't see or hear me, even when you are in the house, except when we have guests of course."

At this point, the ghost of a smirk came to brush his lips; however he didn't say anything, contenting himself with a curt nod to invite me to continue.

"I won't even talk to you unless it's necessary," I went on. "As long as I can rule this house as I please."

He nodded again.

"You have a deal," he said.

"I'm not done," I objected. "Not yet. As you have probably guessed, I don't have any money of my own. I need a budget for the house and the garden, aside from the indispensable money I need for my clothes and food."

"How much?" he asked automatically, with a look suggesting that he just wanted this conversation to be over. He just wanted me to go away.

Just as I was about to answer, a crack sounded in the corridor and a second later a tray loaded with a steaming teapot and a pair of cups entered the room, supported by a pair of skinny legs wrapped in a frayed cloth. I stepped backward, using my foot to push a square stool between Potter and me, and sat on a kind of pouf.

Pomy put the tray on the stool and poured the tea inside the cups, her face set in a grim and sulky mask. She handed me a cup, which I took without looking at her. I heard her snarling in anger at my ignoring her, and when her master dismissed her, she strode out of the room as noisily as possible. I had never seen such a disrespectful servant.

We observed each other over our cups of tea for a few seconds, Potter taking occasional sips from his — it was still too hot for me.

"You were saying?" Potter said at last.

"I have a good idea of how much I'll need for the garden," I immediately went on. "However, I don't know exactly for the house, or for my own — ah — maintenance, since it's likely to change with the circumstances. The simplest solution would be to give me access to your bank account."

He stared at me, obviously shocked by this answer. I could understand that — in France, it was called wanting the butter, the money that paid for it and the dairywoman all at once. I spoke up again as he opened his mouth to reply.

"I give you my word that I won't misuse it."

"Your word?" he repeated in a faint voice, and this time his tone was laced with pity. "You expect me to trust you?"

"You'll receive monthly receipts," I pointed out. "You can take back from me the access of your vaults anytime."

He stared down at his cup for a few seconds, thoughtfully turning the porcelain object in his fingers.

"Are you aware," he said at least in a low voice, "that I can't use my money without telling the Minister for Magic about it?"

I remained speechless for a while; this was a revelation to me. The idea of Lestrange controlling our expense was anything but appealing. Strangely enough, and even though I didn't know why I felt that way, I wanted him to be left in the dark about my actions; as if my struggle to find my place in that harsh and cold world I had been thrown into was my own resistance to Lestrange's domination. However, there was clearly nothing I could do about it.

"Do you think Mr. Lestrange would object to my furnishing my new home?" I asked. It may have sounded like a rhetorical question, but now that I was beginning to understand the world Lestrange was ruling, I would not have been so surprised if Potter had answered in the affirmative.

"No, I don't think so," he said scathingly, although this time his anger wasn't directed to me. "He can't expect anyone to accept to live in that empty rat hole. But he'll keep a close watch on the amount of money you will be spending. And I hope you won't give me any reasons to act the same."

He stared at me so intently at those last words that I felt as if I was shrinking on the spot, even if we were both sitting.

"I won't misuse your money," I repeated, somewhat feebly. He was now making me feel like a teenager asking her parents for a permission.

"I'm not sure that you even know what _misusing my money_ would look like," he said dryly. "You have never got out of this house. You don't know anything about the real world; you have no idea what people less privileged than you are going through. I am not going to pay for fancy pieces of furniture, or a hundred dresses or jewels or Merlin knows what other nonsense."

"I didn't choose to be in this position," I murmured in a very low voice. I was fiddling with my cup again, unable to look at him in the eyes. I wasn't even sure I wanted him to hear me — but he did.

"I know," he said in a calmer and softer tone. "I know it would be… unfair… from me to blame you for the situation."

I had a bitter remark on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back. This was as close to a nice word as I had ever heard from him, and I didn't want to ruin it all — no matter how dry and emotionless Potter still sounded.

"I'm just asking you not to make it worse, for the pair of us," he added. He had dropped the hostile and resentful tone he had been using through the whole conversation, but only to pick up the infuriatingly patient voice grown-ups use when talking to children. I sighed in exasperation.

"What do you suggest then?" I snapped. "If my word isn't enough for you?"

"I suggest another kind of agreement," he answered with ease. "I am going to create a separate account in Gringotts, that will be entirely yours. I'll make monthly deposits according to an evaluation of your needs. If, exceptionally, you need more, you can drop a written note on my desk. I don't care what you do with that money, and I won't interfere in your spending it — Pomy will tell me if you're being unreasonable, and then I'll just stop the deposits. On the other hand, I'd be grateful if, as you suggested yourself, you could stay out of my way. Do I make myself clear?"

The idea of Pomy looking into my books was not exactly delighting me, but Potter's tone was final and I knew there would be no use in trying to argue this point. This agreement, while humiliating for me, still was the best I could get at the moment.

"Perfectly clear."

He then had a small smile, the first one I had ever seen on his face.

"You seem pretty eager to be rid of me yourself," he noted, gently mocking. "So I don't think we'll tread on each other's toes very often."

With those words he stood up, putting back his cup on the tray in front of him, and I imitated him. The conversation I had been dreading for days was over, leaving me inexpressibly relieved. My stomach unfortunately chose that moment to grumble loudly and I instantly felt my cheeks burn in embarrassment as Potter's eyes flickered back to me for a second. Thankfully, he was too polite to make a comment, and merely held the door open for me. I quickly walked out with a mumbled thanks and almost tripped on the elf Pomy, who was waiting outside and had clearly heard our entire exchange. The smug smirk on the creature's face didn't bode well for me.

As I walked away, eager to put some distance between me and the sinister little office, I heard Potter giving instructions to his elf to buy some food. Just as I turned round a corner, Potter lowered his voice and I reflexively halted, forgetting that he probably didn't want me to hear what he was about to say.

And because days of listening to the silent heartbeat of the empty house had already sharpened my ears, I caught his words.

"…Tell me you didn't let her _starve,_ Pomy."

I didn't wait to hear more. I slowly let out the breath I had been holding and resumed my walking, a small grin playing on my lips. The rain was singing merrily on the tiles of the roof.

* * *

"You has enough dresses. You don't need more."

I bit back a curse. The shrill voice of the house-elf Pomy was sounding far too often in my bedroom to my liking, and the condescending note in her tone was becoming more marked every day as she took a visible pleasure in supervising my activities. The sooner I would be rid of that elf, the better.

"I thought I had made myself clear," I snapped, without even spinning my chair around to face the old servant. She wasn't worth it. "I need at least one elegant outfit. I never mentioned anything extravagant."

"You is a girl, you don't need to look like a lady," was the elf's disdainful answer.

"Mr. Potter and I are invited to Mr. and Mrs. Lestrange's for dinner, the day after tomorrow," I said loudly, cutting across her. "Say that to your master."

Silence fell again in the bedroom. I knew Pomy was still there, standing in the middle of the room behind my back, while I worked at the overly large desk. Expecting another snide comment, I was slightly taken aback at the elf's persisting silence and I had to resist the urge to turn around and see the look on her face. Ignoring her was, sadly, the only harm I could do to her; otherwise I would have made great use of the stinging spell in the last three days since my conversation with Potter.

"Lestrange?" whispered the elf at last.

I finally gave in to temptation and glanced at her over my shoulder; her eyes were wider than ever and her mouth was open in speechless indignation.

"Yes," I answered coldly, returning to my writing. "Therefore I will need my dress tomorrow at the latest. You don't expect me to meet the Minister and his wife in everyday robes, do you?"

I glanced again at the still silent elf and added lightly, "It may damage your master's reputation."

I knew I had used the ultimate argument — Pomy was a wretched and filthy creature, but she obviously belonged to an old wizarding family and her master's reputation meant the world to her. And indeed, it was not long before she gave in to my reasons.

"I is getting your new dress," she snarled, her spite so audible that I couldn't suppress a smirk. In the never-ending war I led against the house-elf, this was one of the few victories.

"Good," I commented, satisfied. "The dress is at Arletto's, on Diagon Alley. It's reserved under the name Potter, but it's not paid for. There is a small bag of gold waiting for you at Gringotts; just give a Goblin this message with my signature on it — it's on the bed next to you, I think."

I heard Pomy mutter furiously under her breath as she snatched the small parchment I had indicated. Right before she left the room, she threw at me a last shaft, loathing dripping from every word.

"Pomy was right. You is a Death Eater."

I remained bent over the parchment I was working on until I was sure the room was deserted. I soon heard, one floor below, the distant crack telling me Pomy had left the house, and only then did I allow myself to slump back in my chair and close my eyes for a moment.

The last three days had been both exciting and exhausting. I had never stopped walking up and down that commercial street called Diagon Alley, where apparently were reunited the best magical stores in Britain, Pomy trotting along beside me — her stance and expression reminding me of Beauxbâtons' old caretaker as she inspected my purchase. The priority being the transformation of the house, I had concentrated on finding a good architect and a couple of decent decorators.

The old man specialising in magical architecture and decoration that I had finally hired was grumpy, resentful and for some reason hated the French with a passion, and if I had been able to find anyone else willing to work for me I would have got rid of him within an hour of discussing his plans for the house; however, at the mere mention of the name Potter, all Diagon Alley shopkeepers except him had shrunk behind their counters before muttering they couldn't do anything for me. All I could do now was enduring the old architect's constant whining as he worked in the house… He complained about the wages, the laziness of his two assistants, the fact that he had to deal with a 'young and clueless female' rather than Mr. Potter himself, and of course the fact that, being French, I could not understand half of the technical words he was using…

The bright side of the situation was that he was quick and talented; the living room was now entirely transformed, from the grey and sinister place it used to be, into a comfortable room full of red and saffron furniture. My choice of colours had been directly inspired from the fifth-years study room at Beauxbâtons palace; curiously enough, it had elicited a disbelieving snort from the architect.

"You want gold and red for your living room?" he had sniggered, in that grating voice that I had grown to hate as much as Pomy's shrill one. "What, tryin' to get on the Dark Lord's bad side?"

"Do you really think the Dark Lord would ever come to my house? Besides, I don't see why he would object to the colours of my _living room,_ of all things."

"Let's say green and silver would be more of his liking," the architect had cryptically answered.

I had no idea what he was talking about, and thus I had settled in pointing out that silver and green were very cold colours for a living room. He had made no further comment — although his persisting sneer was eloquent enough as to what he thought of my ideas.

I had been shocked at the amount of money the furnishing of the living room had required. At this rate, I would have to wait until next month before hoping to have a decent dining room. This didn't suit me at all, if I had invitations to make; I was not exactly the most sociable person in the world, but how could I avoid returning the favour when _I_ was invited to dinner by the Minister for Magic himself?

An icy feeling of dread swelled in my chest at this thought; and in spite of myself, I opened my eyes again and pushed aside the parchment I had been writing on when Pomy had disturbed me, thus uncovering a letter covered in a dry, narrow handwriting. The message was brief and curt.

_Mrs. Potter,_

_My wife Bellatrix and myself would be glad to have you and your husband at dinner, at eight on Thursday night. Please send your answer before tonight._

_Regards,_

_Rodolphus Lestrange, Minister for Magic._

My fingers brushed against the signature, and I shivered slightly as the mocking, disdainful but eerily suave voice of Rodolphus Lestrange seemed to echo at my ears, like a ghostly memory. I didn't know if I wanted to see him again or not. The man undoubtedly terrified me, yet I had this nagging feeling that he and I belonged to the same kind; to this dying breed using words and smiles as weapons, living with ease in pretence and valuing reputation and dignity more than life itself. I knew perfectly well the rules of the game he was playing, even though he had been until now the incontestable winner…

Oh yes, we were of the same kind; a kind that was entirely strange to people like Bellatrix Lestrange or James Potter.

I pulled back towards me the parchment I had been working on and, picking up a quill that was negligently thrown across the desk, I started writing again.

_Potter Residence_

_November the 5th, 1983_

_Minister,_

_It is with great pleasure that my husband and I accept your kind invitation on next Thursday. We would be honoured of seeing you and Mrs. Lestrange again…_

And as the quill scratched on the rough parchment, covering the yellowing surface in shining ink that traced elegant cursive letters, another voice was ringing inside my head, speaking a language much harsher than the insipid and proper sentences that I dutifully wrote down.

_Never speak your mind. Never let anyone suspect that you're taking decisions. Officially, your husband decides and you obey. You must be the only one to know just how different the reality is._

The quill slowed down at it drew the curve of an f, to finally halt on an excrescence of parchment.

But how different was my reality?

* * *

"The dining room simply doesn't exist at all," grumbled Howard Rumfold, my old architect, an hour after Potter's owl had flown away with my reply to the Lestranges' letter. His eyes, narrowed and gleaming in disapproval in his old face, were sweeping the bare walls of my empty dining room. "That's going to cost you as much as the living room, if not more."

"Can you give me an estimation?" I asked, resigned to the worst.

He sniffed disdainfully, his frown deepening as he eyed the too small window and the empty brackets fixed on the white, terribly impersonal walls.

"No less then a hundred and fifty Galleons," he said at last.

I swallowed with some difficulty. "Thank you," I managed to stammer out. "I'll see you tomorrow so that I can finish to pay you for the living room, is that fine with you?"

"I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?" he retorted, his voice grating on the words like an old door on its rusty hinges.

We crossed the new living room on our way back to the hall, the old man pouring out the usual flow of complaints and dark predictions — although he deigned favour the newly furnished room with a grudging 'I did well with that one, pity you didn't have the money for a Persian rug'. I distractedly listened to him, punctuating his whining with an occasional monosyllable; he didn't seem to mind my blatant lack of interest as he went on, now grumbling against the new Minister's policy on taxes.

"…will ruin me, he will, and then he'll have his carnivorous horses eat the flesh from my bones… Did you know the Minister had those man-eating beasts?"

He shot at me an inquiring look as he extended his wrinkled, spotted-skinned hand towards the new coat rack where his cloak hung, limp and grey with dust that seemed embedded in the worn material.

"No, I didn't," I answered dully.

"Of course you wouldn't," he said with a grim satisfaction while he grabbed the cloak and flung it across his shoulders. "What would a French kid know about those things?"

He gathered the hems of the cloak in his claw-like hands and wrapped the garment tighter around his skinny body. I idly noticed the strange resemblance existing between that old man cramped in his cloak and an aged vulture as I walked him to the door and opened it for him.

"And didn't you notice how cold it is?" Rumfold added on the doorstep. "Dark Magic, I bet."

"I'm sure it's only because winter is coming earlier this year, Mr. Rumfold," I replied, unable to mask the impatience in my voice. Would that man ever leave?

"Of course, what would you know about those things?" he muttered crossly. "Not even English…"

He walked down the three stone steps, stiff as a board as he went on grumbling to himself. I waited until I had seen him pull a Portkey out of his pocket — he had whined more than once about how his rheumatisms made Apparition extremely painful to him — and disappear in a swirl of his cloak, before I closed the door with a sigh of relief and leant against it. A dull ache was developing above my right eye, making me dread the beginning of a migraine.

My eyes flew open again in alarm when the doorbell suddenly rang on the other side of the door.

"Not again," I muttered through clenched teeth. The day before Rumfold had forgotten something and had come back to retrieve it; and unfortunately for me, his return had been accompanied with a fresh stream of grievances. I doubted I had the courage to bear those for one more minute.

I tiredly turned around and, seizing the huge metallic handle, pulled the heavy door open just enough for me to peer outside.

"Who is —"

The words died on my lips as I stared at empty space. Nobody was here.

Then —

"Mademoiselle! Lali est ici!"

The high-pitched, achingly familiar voice had the effect of a punch in the stomach. I stood breathless with a mixture of astonishment and wild incredulity, as my eyes travelled down — on their own volition, it seemed — to meet the enormous and tear-filled eyes of a tiny creature standing on my doorstep.

"Doesn't you recognise your old Lali, Mistress?" the creature squeaked again in French, her voice trembling with emotion. She was wrapped in a wide midnight blue napkin, speckled with tiny silver roses — the colours of Syrnac house. Behind her stood a huge trunk that I recognised as mine.

My old servant. My old trunk.

Giving in to a sudden impulse, I wrenched the door wide open and, dropping on my knees, wrapped my arms tightly around the startled house-elf. I was vaguely aware that I was laughing hysterically, that salty tears stung my eyes as I desperately clung to the ugly, wrinkled and beloved little creature who was bringing back to me, in the folds of her blue napkin, all the colourful memories of my life as a little princess.

* * *

Oh, it felt so good to sit on the hearthrug in the living room, in front of a roaring fire, my old house-elf expertly doing my hair like in the old days. My trunk had been safely put away in my bedroom and Lali's bed had been placed in a cupboard of the kitchen. Our duties accomplished, we were now enjoying our reunion.

"You look underfed, mademoiselle Marie," Lali critically said as she plaited my hair. "And you look sad. Lali don't like that."

"I've had a few rough days, yes," I answered lightly. "But now that you're here, I'm not worrying about anything anymore."

"And you is right, mademoiselle Marie," agreed the elf. "Lali is taking care of everything. Just tell Lali what I has to do."

I smirked, my fingers idly playing with the hem of my robes.

"Well," I began, "you see, there is another house-elf in this house. Her name is Pomy, and she is my husband's elf."

I was interrupted by an angry sniff as Lali tugged on my hair a little too vigorously.

"When I think Mademoiselle was married to an Englishman, I is furious," she said vehemently, almost spitting out the word 'Englishman'. "I said to Mademoiselle's Uncle, I told him, 'Your brother would have never accepted to sell Mademoiselle to an English! What did Saint Joan of Arc fight for, I is asking you?'"

"I know, Lali, but I _am_ married now," I said patiently. "And he isn't a problem. Don't worry about him. His elf, on the other hand, is an insolent little beast."

Lali carefully wrapped the long plait around my head and started drawing pins from the folds of her napkin, planting them in my hair with an expert hand.

"Lali wasn't expecting anything else, Mademoiselle," she said disdainfully. "And English house-elf? Pouah! Do you want Lali to hit her with a bit of good _continental_ magic, Mademoiselle? Lali would love to."

"No," I said in a low voice. "No, I want something else from you. I want you to do all the work in this house. I want everything to be clean before she gets up. I want all the cooking to be done before she sets foot in the kitchen. I want her to have nothing to do."

The small wrinkled hand had frozen on my hair. I slightly turned my head to glance at Lali, and my eyes met her wide, astonished ones.

"Mademoiselle hates the elf so much?" she said in a hushed voice.

I tilted my head to one side and smiled innocently at her, retrieving automatically in Lali's presence the manners of spoiled little girl that were mine years ago.

"Will you do it?" I asked.

A nearly evil smile stretched Lali's lips and her huge dark blue eyes started gleaming with a fierce joy.

"Trust Lali, Mademoiselle," she whispered. "The elf won't be able to do anything. Even if Lali has to stay up all night!"

* * *

A/N: Well I, for one, had to stay up for a good number of nights in order to get that chapter done. I'm very sorry for the delay, and I'm sure you'll understand that my studies keep me really busy; hence my current pathetic update rate. It's a miracle that I managed to update each of my three stories in the last three months actually…

Thank you all for your patience, that I hope is rewarded. Until next time!

A/N2: I don't think I've mentioned it... _Marie-Antoinette_ was runner-up for the QuickSilverQuills Awards on Mugglenet, categ. Best Alternate Universe.


	7. Dinner at the Lestranges'

**Chapter Six: Dinner at the Lestranges'**

When, much later, I recalled the first dinner I attended at the Lestranges', the earliest memory to come back to me was the lights. The heavy chandelier hanging from the ceiling was supporting three dozens of candles that flooded the dining room with a soft, golden glow, the pool of warm light gently lapping at the thick and venerable tapestries hanging from the high walls. The porcelain plates were circled with a thin band of gold that gleamed with a quiet luxury against the dark red tablecloth, and silver flashed every time a guest moved their cutlery. The crystal glasses, the rich-coloured wine, the bright jewels on Bellatrix's neck and on her sister Narcissa's fingers and ears, Potter's wristwatch and the metallic frame of his glasses, my baptism medal and my wedding ring, all caught the light of the candles and filled the room with multi-coloured shimmers.

There were six of us: Bellatrix Lestrange sat cross-legged at the hostess's place, majestic although a bit stiff, and doing little to conceal her impatience as the dinner dragged on; in that she resembled my husband, James Potter, who sat on her right and spent most of the dinner nibbling nervously on his lower lip, barely touching his food. His eyes were cast downwards and the hand resting on his knee tensed involuntarily, causing the tendons on the back of his hand to show through his pale skin — as if all he wanted was to turn his back on everyone and leave the brightly lit room.

On the other side of Bellatrix was her husband; Rodolphus Lestrange seemed to take malicious pleasure in Potter's struggle to remain seated and calm and in his own wife's impatient sighs, as himself finished his plate with purposeful slowness. His conversation was light and witty, his voice silky and caressing. Although he barely said two words to me, preferring to discuss with his brother-in-law, his eyes often flickered in my direction; and he appeared oddly pleased to see me much more at ease in that formal atmosphere than my husband was.

The other two persons were Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix's sister and brother-in-law. From the moment I had arrived, I had been instantly drawn to Narcissa: she had an innate grace in all of her moves and a crystalline laughter, deliciously feminine, which easily made up for the few flaws in her appearance. Of course, to the trained eye, it was easy to see that she was a little too skinny, or that her eyes were of an unimpressive shade of grey-blue, rather dull in an already colourless face; and whenever she spoke, one could hear the annoying and slightly affected drawl in her voice. However, her gaiety and liveliness quickly made me forget what had at first struck me as disadvantageous in her.

As for her husband, he was a tall, blonde-haired man, who looked a few years older than Potter; my first impression was that he probably was as much of a noble wizard as Lestrange himself, but, for some reason, I suspected he did not have the same fortitude. He looked vain, rather than proud; and his moves and voice were more affected than refined.

"…outstanding Legilimens. I doubt that even that old fool of Dumbledore would be able to lie to the Dark Lord; in such conditions, do we really have reasons to fear spies?"

"My dear Lucius," replied Lestrange, sounding amused, "your faith in the Dark Lord is nothing short of touching. However, the Dark Lord has innumerable servants; it is unlikely that they all get to speak to him, let alone make eye contact with him. A spy could hide among some of those who aren't of the Inner Circle."

"Of course, of course," Malfoy unctuously agreed. "But all information has to come directly to the Dark Lord's most faithful servants. It would require a master at Occlumency to get past one of us, don't you think?"

Lestrange smirked as he took his glass of red wine and brought it up to his lips, in a gesture tinged with this graceful nonchalance that I had come to automatically associate with him.

"Yes, I have no doubt that your friends Crabbe and Goyle would immediately detect the _slightest lie_, Lucius," he shot at him, just before taking a sip.

Everyone except me laughed at Lestrange's answer, Narcissa with her usual sophisticated elegance and Bellatrix with a frank glee marked with malice; Malfoy half-heartedly imitated them, although his eyes remained cold. I even thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Potter's lips.

"Dear Merlin, we're being horribly rude," Narcissa suddenly exclaimed as she noticed I wasn't laughing. "Mrs. Potter, you can't appreciate how funny what Rodolphus just said was… Mr. Crabbe and Goyle are old friends of the Malfoy family's, but you should see them! They wouldn't be able to give a coherent order to a house-elf —"

"The purity of their blood and their faithfulness to the Dark Lord are beyond any reproach, and that's all that counts," Malfoy dryly cut in. He had obviously been moderately amused at Lestrange's witticism.

"Well that's a question of point of view," Potter unexpectedly said, his voice even as he raised his head to meet Malfoy's eyes. "I wouldn't want for a servant someone who isn't able to use a Summoning Charm without hurting themselves, or whose vocabulary doesn't include words with more than two syllables; but then that's Voldemort's choice to make, I guess."

The name 'Voldemort' seemed to strike all the guests with the violence and suddenness of a stone thrown fully in their faces. Narcissa brought a hand to her chest as she gasped, her grey-blue eyes widening with shock, while the other two men went oddly, dangerously still. But the most violent reaction came from Bellatrix: with an inarticulate snarl of anger, she abruptly drew her wand from the belt of her dress, in one startlingly fluid gesture. She jabbed it at Potter just as I saw my husband's hand dive in his pocket, in search for his own wand, but he was too slow: a curse was already forming on her lips — but it was a cry of pain and surprise that came out of her mouth as her husband slapped her hand down with astonishing brutality.

The slap sounded in the quiet dining room like a gunshot. Bellatrix dropped the wand, and it rolled across the table to slowly come to a rest against my glass. Beside me, Potter remained seated, but his hand was still in his wand pocket and it was obvious that he would be ready for the next attack. Indeed, Bellatrix did try to reach for her fallen weapon, but Lestrange's fingers curled around both of her wrists and maintained her solidly in her seat; she instantly turned to her husband eyes burning with fury, her teeth bared in an almost animal expression.

I still don't know what instinct urged me to speak up at that precise instant.

"A question of point of view, indeed. Lineage and faithfulness are virtues, just as much as skill or intelligence; you just have to find an appropriate use for each of them."

The insignificant words fell from my mouth in the tense atmosphere, just as droplets of cool water spilling into a furnace; and at once five pairs of eyes abruptly turned in my direction. Eyes full of suspicion, anger or shock openly scrutinised me as I very naturally resumed the conversation, blind and deaf to the disturbance that went against every rule of the pure-blooded society. I chose to keep my gaze locked to Lestrange's unreadable one, keeping a light smile on my face while I pointedly ignored the fact that my interlocutor was busy restraining his wife with all his might — his knuckles were turning white as she struggled against the strong grip he had on her wrists.

I dropped my eyes again and, just as Lestrange had done a few minutes earlier, delicately took my glass of wine and brought it up to my lips. I took the time to taste the pleasantly fruity alcohol, then lowered my glass without putting it down yet as I met Lestrange's eyes again. Bellatrix, I noted, had stopped struggling.

"It seems to me that the Dark Lord knows perfectly how to use all of his servants' qualities," I evenly concluded. "After all, he won the war."

Lestrange released his wife's wrists without warning, almost causing her to fall out of her chair. He ignored the curse that escaped her as he kept staring at me with an eerie intensity.

"He most certainly did," Lestrange quietly acquiesced. Then he averted his eyes from me and, abruptly switching back to his usual suave tones, politely asked, "More wine, Narcissa?"

Narcissa hid her confusion with remarkable ease, although I had caught the slight start she had given at Lestrange's question; but when she held out her glass with a charming smile and a light comment, I felt the tension in the room ease at last as everything went back to normal.

I took a deep breath and briefly put down my fork and knife in order to wipe my sweaty, trembling hands against the material of my dress.

"Where were we, Rodolphus?" Lucius drawled out as the chiming of cutlery filled the room again.

"Spies and Legilimency, I think," Lestrange responded with an admirably discreet, but quite noticeable, yawn of boredom. "Although I do think everything that needed to be said—"

"Since you sound so eager to give your opinion, Mrs. Potter, why don't you tell us what you think of the use of Legilimency against spies?" Bellatrix unexpectedly shot at me.

I am ashamed to admit that she caught me off guard; my stomach clenched painfully at the sudden attack, and for several, interminable seconds, I was unable to think of anything to say as all eyes once again turned to me.

Bellatrix's blow had been unexpected; just as unexpected was the hand that suddenly took mine, under the table, and squeezed it in a silent injunction to remain quiet.

"I fail to see the point of this discussion," Potter shortly answered, drawing everyone's attention to him. "No one would be enough of a fool to try spying on the Death Eaters without being a Master at Occlumency. Surely you could've thought of this yourself, Mrs. Lestrange?"

Potter's hand was still gripping mine tightly, under the protection of the dark red tablecloth; I tentatively gave his fingers a gentle squeeze in return, wordlessly assuring him that I wouldn't breathe a word, and he released my hand immediately. I ignored the strange feeling of loss that tightened inside my chest as he let go, and I brought my attention back to Bellatrix.

"I don't believe I was talking to you, Potter," she snapped in annoyance.

"But why would you ask my wife such a question?" he shot back. "She barely just arrived to England, and I doubt she is knowledgeable in Voldemort's politics; which I can't blame her for."

"_Bellatrix,_" Lestrange growled out in warning. His wife had paled with rage at this new mention of Voldemort's name. "I will have to agree with Mr. Potter on this. This pointless discussion has bored everyone around this table, and I would be a mediocre host if I allowed such fine ladies to suffer any longer a tedious politics talk."

"Why, Rodolphus, you are too kind," Narcissa trilled in response. "That will save me the embarrassment of falling asleep in my plate, like a common Mudblood."

"Narcissa darling, sometimes you have the most extravagant ideas," Lucius interrupted, cold and haughty. Narcissa took the rebuke in silence, but an expression of great weariness fleetingly crossed her thin face at her husband's words.

The rest of the dinner was spent in idle chatters and exchanges of witticisms, in the kind of light, pleasant atmosphere I had been accustomed to in my parents' lifetime. But my stomach was still painfully knotted and I barely ate anything; besides me, Potter and Bellatrix showed for the content of their plate as little interest as I did. The three of us were longing for the dinner to end.

After the meal we retreated into the living room. The three men gathered in a corner, where a house-elf promptly brought them a box of expensive-looking, stupendously long cigars. Lestrange and Malfoy both took one from the box, and Potter imitated them after a second's hesitation. The elf trotted back out of the living room, the dark red material of its toga shimmering with the waves of golden heat that a huge, crackling fire was generously dispensing; it was soon back, this time carrying a heavy silver tray loaded with a square bottle made of crystal, full of dark amber liquid, and, to my great surprise, four glasses.

"That's Firewhisky. The men's drink _par excellence,_" Bellatrix said. I turned to her, an automatic and politely intrigued smile plastered on my face, and I found her watching me intently. "And the reason why there are four glasses is that I'm having some, too. That must shock you, doesn't it?" she added with a smile of her own, a smile that was far from mirroring my empty one; there was a feral quality to it.

I cast a quick look around; Narcissa was standing at a few steps from Bellatrix and me, adjusting her hair according to the directives of a critical, disembodied voice that was coming from the mirror in front of her. No one would be there to overhear our exchange.

I took a step closer to Bellatrix and answered in a low voice, looking up in her burning eyes, "Why, Mrs. Lestrange — I'm shocked that you don't smoke one of those cigars as well."

"Be careful, baby girl," she hissed in reply. Her voice was even lower than mine, and her smile had faded when she had heard the mockery in my tone. "Just because Potter had his hand on your thigh all through dinner, you shouldn't start to feel all confident. What?" she scoffed as I failed to repress a start. "You thought I hadn't seen your little game? Holding hands under the tablecloth? Pathetic…"

"Madam," squealed a house-elf's voice at our feet.

Bellatrix turned away from me and bent down, picking up a glass full of Firewhisky and a packet of white cigarettes. I turned my back on her when she blew a first cloud of smoke in my face; I had to make an effort to contain the trembling of my hands as I did so. The way she had deliberately dirtied and belittled James Potter's gesture at dinner had aroused in me an anger I hadn't thought myself capable of. It was like a burning-hot poison seeping inside my entrails and heating up my blood, clouding my mind to the point where all I wanted was break Bellatrix Lestrange's long and white neck with my bare hands.

As I passed her, however, my shoulder brushing against hers as I walked up to Narcissa, her hand seized my wrist and held it in a brutal, vice-like grip. I halted; I halted because I had a choice between walking on, thus having my arm torn off my shoulder, and stopping in the hope I'd remain whole. But I didn't give her the satisfaction of looking at her.

"Listen to me, baby girl," she whispered in my ear. "Watch your mouth. Never provoke me again. Never stand between me and my prey again. I can crush you, you know. I am the Dark Lord's most faithful servant. I will crush you."

"Speaking of which," I answered softly, "I believe this is yours."

And out of my pocket I drew Bellatrix's wand, which I had picked up when it had fallen from her grasp during dinner. I held it out to her, meeting her eyes for the first time since she had stopped me.

"This might be useful if you ever plan to crush anybody, don't you think?" I lazily said.

I must say that, for a fleeting instant, I enjoyed greatly the look on her face at the sight of her wand; this satisfaction, however, only lasted until I had to stifle a cry of pain as Bellatrix viciously twisted the wrist she was still holding.

"Well, what are you girls chatting about?" rang Narcissa's voice from behind me.

Bellatrix instantly let go of my wrist, sneering at me as I tried to take deep, soothing breaths. My wrist was throbbing, the pain shooting in painful pangs up my arm every time I moved it.

"Nothing," Bellatrix replied. "I'll let you chat up Baby Girl on your own, Cissy, I'll be a little further away with my cigarette. The smoke would make Baby Girl cough."

She walked away, her pace quick and brusque, the white cigarette she held between two fingers emitting lazy ribbons of smoke that curled in her wake as she went.

"Sweet Morgana, Bella looks angry," Narcissa noted. "What were you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing really, I… gave her her wand back," I mumbled truthfully. I didn't trust myself to speak more loudly; my wrist was hurting badly and my voice might have quavered. "She had lost it during dinner."

"Of course, how could I be so silly?" Narcissa exclaimed, her face lightening in comprehension. "No wonder she's so furious, after what Rodolphus put her through tonight. In my opinion, he was right," she added, dropping her voice with something akin to guilt. "Bellatrix is the bravest, smartest and most powerful witch I've ever known, but she _ought_ to have better manners in society. I could tell you stories from when we were little…"

I was surprised to find, after several minutes of listening to Narcissa, that I was truly enjoying myself. The young Mrs. Malfoy had a gift for storytelling; anecdotes from her childhood were told with inimitable wit and liveliness, and soon we were both sitting on the couch, talking as if we had known each other for years. I also learned quite a lot about her school, which was known to be one of the very best in the world. It was called Hogwarts, and she told me about it with an odd mixture of disdain and fondness. It was clear to me that, although she affected to despise the school — as did most of her entourage, from what she told me — she still felt for it a kind of guilty longing.

"I'm sorry, what's Slytherin?" I asked after a while.

"Oh, I keep forgetting you just arrived to England… Slytherin is one of Hogwarts' four houses. They're like big groups of students, with their own classes and Quidditch teams; well, 'group' doesn't exactly cover the notion. I'm sorry, I'm terrible at explaining."

"Don't worry," I grinned. "I understand. We have the same system in Beauxbâtons Academy."

"Really?" she said, her voice laced with a carefully controlled, but genuine excitement. "You will have to tell me all about your school; I'll invite you over to tea one of these days — just the two of us, no sister and no husbands."

"I would be very happy to come," I said sincerely. "So — you were in Slytherin?"

"Oh yes. All those currently standing in this room used to be in Slytherin. Except your husband, of course."

At these words I automatically turned in my seat and glanced in Potter's direction. He was standing next to the two other men, immobile and silent, looking tense and weary once again. I wondered if I had ever seen him wear an expression that hadn't been tense or weary.

"He was in my year," Narcissa murmured pensively. Her gaze had followed mine and she was, too, staring at my husband with a dreamy expression on her face. "He and my cousin Sirius Black were best friends, and both in Gryffindor house. They were always causing a lot of trouble… But they were popular and admired. It's weird to see Potter like that — all sombre and brooding. He no longer looks like himself."

"Sirius Black is your cousin?" I repeated, distracted by that surprising bit of information.

"Yes, first cousin. But he hates Bella and I," she replied offhandedly, turning her eyes back on me. "He was kicked out of the Black House when he was sixteen, and went to live at Potter's."

"But I thought he lived in his family house?" I asked, frowning as I remembered something Sirius Black had told me.

"He does now," Narcissa confirmed. "He and Potter were both on Dumbledore's side during the war. When Dumbledore was defeated, most of his followers were captured or killed. Sirius and Potter were detained in Azkaban prison for weeks, you know, along with their families and several other blood traitors. I think Potter's parents died in there. I'm not sure of what happened next… They got out of prison, were tended to in St. Mungo's Hospital, then released on the Dark Lord's orders. It was a big surprise for everyone, we all expected them to be executed. The Dark Lord only told his reasons to Rodolphus. Even Bellatrix doesn't know, and she's one of his all-time favourites."

"A blood traitor…" I repeated thoughtfully. Was that the husband I had been given? A traitor to his lineage and his origins?

"Well, I guess he is no longer considered as such," Narcissa admitted. "Especially now that he's married to you. I've heard that you are from the oldest French nobility, is that right?"

From then, our conversation mainly dwelled on the French and English wizarding nobilities. Narcissa asked for stories about old French families, which I was happy to give her, and rewarded me with fascinating tales of the pure-blood society in England. Our pleasant tête-à-tête had almost lasted an hour when the Lestranges, Potter and Malfoy joined us by the fireside, their glasses empty and their cigars reduced to ashes filling crystal ashtrays. Rodolphus Lestrange was the only one to take a part in the conversation, relating a few anecdotes and correcting Narcissa, who sometimes got mixed up in the genealogy; and he did so with such charming manners and such delicacy that I was, once again, utterly and completely subjugated.

It was getting late, and soon the Malfoys took their leaves of Rodolphus Lestrange and his wife. From a comment that Narcissa let slip as her husband helped her with her cloak, I understood that they had a very young child named Draco; apparently they did not want to leave the child too long at the hands of the dirty-blooded witch they had hired to watch after him.

It was not a bad idea, I thought to myself as Potter, too, said his goodbyes to our host. My house-elf Lali was the best servant I could hope for, but she was so busy with the house and the garden that I couldn't expect her to take care of my clothes and hair. Hiring a chambermaid would be useful — preferably before I got more invitations that I would have to return.

Unfortunately, I had no idea where to look for a chambermaid. I knew that a Muggleborn would probably cost me a lot less than a half-blood, and given my restricted budget, this was an aspect I couldn't afford to neglect. However, I had never seen Muggleborns on Diagon Alley, or even true half-bloods; most shopkeepers there had certificates proving their parents and grandparents were all magical.

And since Narcissa had left, there was only one person I could ask about the Muggleborns' possible location. Dread knotted my stomach as I looked around, seeking a tall figure clad in brown, to finally find her standing by an open window; she had turned her back on Lestrange and Potter and remained motionless, staring through the window at a black, starless sky. I quietly made my way to her.

"Mrs. Lestrange," I called in a low voice, making sure that none of the two men heard me. Bellatrix turned around at the sound of my voice, a newly lit cigarette in her hand. Her mouth immediately twisted in intense dislike as she studied me.

That would not be easy.

"I need to ask you something," I continued, against my best instincts. "Information that I'm not sure I could find anywhere else."

She did not answer, merely raising her eyebrows in my direction as a cloud of cigarette smoke escaped her parted lips.

"I need a new chambermaid," I said bluntly before I lost my courage and gave up. "But I have no idea how to find one. I imagine that, given your high rank in the Dark Lord's court, little would happen without you being aware of it. If you could have the kindness of recommending one to me… I absolutely trust your judgement."

The flattery disgusted even me; I hated this woman with an intensity I had never experienced towards anyone else. But I needed her. I had been clumsy enough to mock her an hour earlier in the living room, and make a dangerous enemy out of her; but perhaps it wasn't too late to fix that mistake.

As I waited for Bellatrix's answer, a hand unexpectedly came to rest lightly upon my arm.

"We're going," Potter said in a low voice. He stood right behind me, so close that I could feel the heat emanating from him. "Now," he whispered a little more urgently.

God forgive me, I was only seventeen; his touch, albeit light, and the words he breathed in my ear were enough to completely distract me from the task at hand. My cheeks heated up and I reflexively shied away from the hand on my arm, while another part of me guiltily longed to lean into him. My confusion increased as I was torn between contradictory emotions, and although Potter did not seem to notice, Bellatrix unfortunately did.

"What do you need a servant for? You can always ask him to do the ironing," she jeered cruelly, with a jerk of her chin in Potter's direction.

My breath caught in my throat as if I had received a violent blow in the pit of my stomach. Potter's eyes widened slightly, travelling from Bellatrix to me and back again as he searched for an explanation to our hostess's words.

…_Pretend. Pretend she didn't hurt you. Pretend you didn't understand what she just said. Pretend, come on, pretend!..._

She was laughing, laughing at me, laughing at my stupid teenager's agitation, laughing at _him._ I hated her. I wanted her to scream and whimper and sob, and be ridiculed and humiliated. I wanted to spit in her face and trample her. I wanted to rip her hair off and yell insults that would make her cower under the outrage.

"It was a lovely evening, Mrs. Lestrange," I said instead with a gracious smile. "Good night to you."

And upon those words, my husband and I finally left the sumptuous Lestrange Residence.

* * *

A loud cracking noise disturbed the still air of the November night as Potter and I Apparated back in front of our house. He immediately released my arm, which he had been holding quite tighter than necessary; he seemed to be under the impression that I couldn't Apparate on my own. I had not disabused him. 

The heavy front door opened at a flick of Potter's hand, letting us into the darkened hallway. As we both stepped inside, Potter locking the door behind us with particular care, the grandfather clock sent a single tinkling note ringing through the hallway. It was half past midnight.

No house-elf rushed forward to rid us of our cloaks; Pomy, I knew, was keen on avoiding me as much as possible, and Lali was simply too overwhelmed with work to have time for my personal service.

"We need to hire a chambermaid," I said aloud.

Potter, who was hanging his cloak to the coat rack standing in a corner, threw me a perplexed look over his shoulder.

"You already have two house-elves," he pointed out.

"As you can see, there is obviously too much work for them." I lightly touched the tips of my fingers to the fasteners of my cloak in explanation.

Potter's hand dropped from the coat rack and he slowly turned to face me completely; his expression was hard to read in the flickering light of the only torch.

"You can't take it off yourself?" he asked in a neutral tone.

I tore my cloak off my shoulders with such violence that a silver fastener popped off the thick material and fell, landing on the paved floor in a clear jingle of metal. I did not bother to pick it up and walked up to the coat rack, holding my cloak in hands that trembled slightly with repressed rage.

"Merlin. May I ask how I was unfortunate enough to provoke your ire?" Potter asked as I passed him by. He was imitating Lestrange's suave tones with such insolence that I instantly feared he had noticed the fascination I had for our host.

"By acting as if you didn't understand, perhaps?" I answered through gritted teeth. The coat rack was a little too high for me and my cloak kept slipping off the wooden peg.

"Do enlighten me."

"You know perfectly well why I want a chambermaid," I shot at him in frustration, without looking at him or pausing in my attempts to hang my cloak. I was highly aware of how ridiculous I probably looked, struggling with a coat rack, and it did nothing to ease my growing exasperation. "You know _perfectly well_ that I can take care of myself, I don't have much choice since you periodically leave me alone in the house! It's a question of principles, you just can't receive visitors if no one is there to rid them of their coats—"

"Here," he interrupted me, his voice completely different.

He took my cloak from my hands and hung it himself, with a few calm and precise gestures. We were once more standing very close, but I didn't step away; I couldn't bring myself to. I dimly wondered why he had that effect on me; when I had stopped seeing him as an enemy, or as a complete stranger… But I was too tired to think further of it. It might just have been that I was starting to feel extremely lonely, after all.

"There you go," Potter said, letting his hand fall back at his side. "Was that what Bellatrix was referring to, just before we left? You had asked her about getting a chambermaid?"

I nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. My burst of temper had left me even wearier than before, and his suddenly softer tone made me feel vaguely ashamed of losing control over myself.

"I see," he murmured.

I chanced a glance at his face; he appeared to be lost in thought, and his eyes that he kept fixed on me were glazed-over, as if he wasn't really seeing me at all.

"I see," he said again after several silent seconds. "Well, I'm pretty tired now, so if you have nothing else to tell me I'll take my leave."

He finally stepped away from me, nodding in my direction as a goodbye, and started walking up to the foot of the stairs.

"One question actually," I blurted out before I had the time to think.

He paused, one foot already on the first step of the stairs. It was too late now to be cautious.

"Why did you take my hand at dinner?"

He frowned, but it wasn't quite as if he was annoyed at my question. He rather seemed to be looking for the words that would best render his thoughts.

"Because," he slowly answered at last, "it can be dangerous to talk about certain topics in the presence of people like the Lestranges or the Malfoys. In some occasions it is safer to elude the questions."

"Why would you care about my safety?"

Just like the first one, this question had escaped me before I could think it through. However, this time he didn't need to think before giving an answer — it came immediately.

"Because I'm in enough trouble as it is, without you adding to it."

* * *

This sounded like one of Aimée's terrible romance novels, I reflected as I distractedly brushed my hair in front of a mirror spotted by moisture, in the large bathroom adjoining the conjugal bedroom. An arranged marriage between two people hating each other on principle, but who would finally fall in each other's arms and confess an undying love. I couldn't help laughing at the ridiculousness of these thoughts. We were very far from passionate declarations, what with Potter announcing most naturally that I was a burden, someone who 'added to his trouble.' The periodical exchanges of money that were the essence of our relationship were not particularly romantic either. Nevertheless, I couldn't find a logical explanation for this curious desire I had to lean on him, to trust him and especially to touch him — in other words, this longing for a genuine intimacy between us. 

Intimacy… Intimacy with a man who was seven years my senior, an Englishman whose past was completely unknown to me; a man who was never keen on being in my presence more than he had to, or talking to me when it wasn't absolutely necessary; a man who did not care for me or even trust me in the least.

But also a man who was my husband. The one human being who lived in the same house as I did. The one human being I was expected to spend the rest of my life with. The one that I should be able to be completely intimate with, in every sense of the term, without any second thought.

I put my hairbrush back on the side of the huge sink and gathered my long hair in my hands; it crackled with electricity against my palms from the rough brushing, making it difficult to handle as I started to plait it for the night.

That was probably the explanation, I thought. I couldn't help thinking of Potter as my husband, and every time I used that word I was reminded of what reality it was supposed to represent. I was tired and sick of being alone; perhaps I unconsciously nourished the hope that he would, one day, be interested in me. Indeed, at the thought of the interminable years of loneliness that were to come, a shiver shook my entire body as if a deadly cold was seizing my limbs. My ribcage suddenly felt too small for my heart to beat at ease, and a painful lump came up in my throat.

I let go of my hair, the half-done plait hanging down my back, and my hands went down to curl around the sides of the sink in front of me. I leant forward and rested my forehead against the mirror encased in the wall of my bathroom. The porcelain under my palms and the glass against my forehead were cool and soothing, and as I stood there with my eyes shut, the disorderly hammering of my heart slowly faded back into a normal, regular beat.

I didn't need him.

I didn't need any of them.

I would live and rise in spite of them all; in spite of him too if I had to. The games and rules of the pure-blood society were familiar to me. Someone who knew how to play by them could quickly get more influent, and influence is power. _Power,_ which the little French schoolgirl so cruelly lacked, or so _they_ thought.

I could do that. I had to try. I had my whole life in front of me. And once I would be independent and powerful enough, then I would worry about being happy.

Loneliness was just another thing I would have to get used to.

I was still leaning over my sink when a sharp tapping sound, coming from the near bedroom, caught my attention. Straightening, I pushed open the bathroom door and peered inside the empty room. My eyes soon fell on the window: a large tawny owl was precariously perched on the narrow window ledge, its huge, round yellow eyes staring unblinkingly at me from the other side of the glass; its beak was clasped over a large square envelope.

My first thought was that Aimée had written to me again, and I practically ran to the window in order to let the owl in. It immediately dropped the letter on my desk and took off again with a satisfied hooting, its claws screeching against the dirty stone of the windowsill.

I reached out and picked up the letter, and as I deciphered the name scribbled on the yellowing parchment I felt my smile slip off my face. The letter was addressed to _Mrs. Potter,_ a name Aimée took care to never use. I toyed a second with the idea that it might come from Sirius Black, or why not, Narcissa Malfoy; but then I turned the letter over, to find a splash of blood-red wax that sealed the otherwise unblemished parchment. I recognised the Lestrange seal.

I stared down at the seal with a feeling of deep confusion mingled with dread. The letter could not have been written more than half an hour ago — in other words, not long after we had left the Lestrange residence. Why was Lestrange writing to _me _at this hour of the night, and after I had spent several hours in his company?

I slowly sat down at the desk and broke the seal. The parchment I unfolded was covered with a handwriting quite unlike the one I remembered from Lestrange's invitation: it was jerkier and slightly tilted to the right, completely deprived of the sophistication that I had noticed in the Minister's calligraphy.

_Mrs. Potter—_

_After you left I remembered a detail that might be useful if you are still willing to hire a chambermaid. A Mudblood will be cheaper than a wizard of better ancestry, so I'd recommend you visit the Mudbloods' village number 4. You can get there by Floo powder. In that village are gathered a lot of young women and single mothers, who will be only too happy to work for you. Single mothers in particular will probably work for any salary you may suggest. I advise you to send a message to the guardian of village number 4, a half-blood named Stan Rocade if I remember correctly, so that he can select good candidates for you._

_Regards,_

_Bellatrix Black Lestrange._

I remained immobile, eyes wide open staring at the signature and searching in vain, in this letter brimming over with unexpected recommendations, for Mrs. Lestrange's cruel sarcasms. In my astonishment, I barely noticed that I had left the window open and that the cold of the November night was piercing the thin material of my nightdress, enveloping me like a coat of ice.

My sentiment of confusion had deepened. So had my feeling of dread.

It was just too strange.

* * *

"_Bella, do you plan to ever come to bed?" _

_I wheeled around to face Rodolphus, who was already in bed, the sheets pulled up to the middle of his bare torso. He was staring me with an amusement that made my blood boil with fury. _

"_You can't wait? Touch yourself then," I snapped. My crudeness made him wince, but unfortunately it failed to wipe that condescending smirk off his lips. _

"_Your vulgarity never ceases to amaze me," he drawled with insufferable nonchalance. "Tell me, this letter you just sent… Did you sign__'Bellatrix _Black_ Lestrange'_ _again?" He chuckled, derision dripping from every single one of his words. _

"_Shut up," I snarled._

"_So you did," he said gleefully. "I sometimes wonder if you're trying to go against as many customs as you can, just to upset me. The attention is flattering, Bella, but it's a tad pathetic nonetheless."_

"_Because humiliating me in front of that little goose and her blood traitor of a husband was the epitome of courtesy, was it?" I hissed at him. Rodolphus didn't seem fazed by my reminding him of his detestable behaviour of tonight._

"_Oh, so that's what it's all about," he said. "Well dear, you'll find that, if I had not — ah — humiliated you, you would have started duelling with Potter in the middle of my dining room. And _that_ is hardly the epitome of courtesy, as you would say."_

"_Potter," I growled, "deserved to be tortured to insanity."_

"_He did," my husband agreed without blinking. "He still does. But Potter himself isn't important, his name is. His family is as old as mine, or yours, my dear. Killing him before he has a chance to reproduce would behead the English nobility, you see. For the Dark Lord, this is not an option."_

"_Why the hell not?"_

_Rodolphus raised his arms and crossed his hands behind his neck, addressing me a glance that betrayed, to my great satisfaction, a certain annoyance. _

"_Why don't you ask the Dark Lord yourself?" he shot back at me. "Oh wait, I remember… _he doesn't want you to know, _does he, Bella?"_

"_You—"_

"_Quiet," he grunted. "You know I can't tell you more so stop breaking my head with your questions. And come to bed."_

"_I'm doing whatever the bloody hell I want," I retorted, turning my back on him once again — the fourth time in the past half an hour. _

_I resumed my staring out of the window, waiting for my owl to come back; a few minutes passed, during which I reflected on some of the words Rodolphus had uttered. Very intriguing words, in fact. Without turning round, I asked aloud, "So as soon as Potter's goose gives him an heir, I can kill him, right?"_

_I heard Rodolphus chuckle again behind me, before he answered in the same amused voice, "That's the general idea. As you know, he has a child — a boy, I think — who has been denied every right to succeed him as the Potter patriarch. A pure-blooded mother is necessary… But that isn't the only reason why Miss de Syrnac was chosen to be Potter's bride."_

_I couldn't help it — I turned around again, to find him looking at me with an expression of triumph. I was, however, too curious to feel irritated._

"_The French goose? How could she be useful to us?"_

_Rodolphus raised his eyebrows at me, before a self-satisfied smile came to stretch his lips; he was obviously delighted at my being forced to ask him questions. He loved having me in the dark. It probably was good for his inflated ego, for I knew he loathed having a strong-willed woman for a wife; a girl like Syrnac would actually seem more appropriate a bride to him. I hated to give him satisfaction, but my thirst for answers was stronger._

"_Think about it, Bella," he said softly. "You've told me yourself that she is an outstanding Occlumens. Her blood is the purest you can find, and she resolutely believes in the pure-blood supremacy. She's young, impressionable, defenceless… I dare say that she found me quite dazzling at dinner tonight… and she happens to be married to one of Dumbledore's most faithful followers."_

_Comprehension dawned upon me. "A spy," I murmured. "You want to make her spy for us on Potter."_

"_Your quick-mindedness is absolutely astonishing, my dear," Rodolphus jeered._

_I ignored him. A spy… Did that mean I would have to befriend her, and gain her trust? Hell no. I hated pure-blooded snobs — my husband being the worst of them all — even more than I despised spying. Hiding, sneaking, lying… I much preferred a good long duel with a couple of nasty curses tearing the opponent to bits. The Syrnac girl happened to be everything I detested in the world; I wouldn't grovel at her feet, whether she was on our side or not._

_At that point, my train of thoughts was interrupted as my owl came soaring through the window and landed neatly on my shoulder. The letter to Mrs. Potter had been safely delivered._

_I let out a slight laugh as I sent the owl away again. That goose would dearly pay for my humiliation of tonight. _

"_So, are you done with your childish games?" came Rodolphus' bored voice from behind me. _

"_I am, yes," I answered with satisfaction, walking up to the bed. _

"_Perfect," he said curtly. Those were all the words we exchanged before he seized my wrist and roughly pulled me down to him, his other hand grabbing the back of my neck as he crushed his mouth against mine in a brutal kiss._

_It always ended like this._

* * *

**A/N: I am not totally happy with a couple of scenes in this chapter, so criticism is welcome.  
**


	8. The Chambermaid

**Chapter Seven: The Chambermaid**

The storm broke out while I was sketching in the garden.

Nothing in the clouds' sullen, pearl-grey dance had distinguished that morning from any sunless other, and when the sky tore up, letting loose sheets of chilly rain that hammered on the ground with a deafening noise, I was caught unawares. I pressed my notepad and pencils to my chest, offering them what little protection I could against the mad elements, and hurried out of the wood of creaking, dancing, rustling trees. I had not covered ten metres when the wind ripped the hood of my cloak from my head, allowing the torrential rain to drench my hair and whip across my face with surprising force. The wild flapping of my robes and cloak hampered my progression as I struggled to get back into the shelter of the house, and by the time I had reached the terrace, I was already soaked to the bones.

I made a very wet and messy entry, leaving pools of water on the black and white tiles as I stumbled into the hallway. Shivering and out of breath, I leant my shoulders against the glassy door, slamming it shut at the same time as the wind tried to force its way into the house. The glass panes rattled angrily against my back.

"Is Mademoiselle all right?" Lali shouted, in French, as she burst out of the kitchen and ran across the hallway as fast as her little legs could carry her. Pomy was close behind, tugging on my elf's midnight blue toga in her attempt to beat her to the living room. Seeing the two house-elves race one another was now fairly common, since Lali carried out my orders to not let Pomy do any work whatsoever with remarkable zeal. The strain of forced idleness was already taking its toll on James Potter's elf: large bags were forming under her bloodshot eyes and her ears drooped like those of a dog caught under the rain.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," I called back.

"There's an owl for Mademoiselle," Lali said in her strident voice, still struggling to rip her toga out of Pomy's clutches. "In — ouch! In her bedroom!"

Pomy tripped Lali, and both elves fell in a heap barely one metre away from the living room door. For several minutes there was a great confusion of high-pitched screeches, bare feet kicking in all directions and small fists swinging about; I finally took out my wand, checked no one stood in the staircase that loomed over the hallway, and aimed a Banishing Charm at the white half of the heap. There was a bang, a shriek, and Pomy found herself thrown backward into the air. She crashed on the floor and, carried away by her momentum, slid across the black and white tiles all the way to the entrance door — which stopped her progression with a very satisfying thud.

By the time the elf had staggered back to her feet, cross-eyed and tangled into her white cloth, Lali had rushed into the living room and locked the door behind her. I had long put my wand away and was now busying myself with the fastenings of my sodden cloak, affecting not to pay any attention to the defeated house-elf.

Pomy ran over to the living room and, after she failed to open the door, started banging on it with closed fists, her skinny little body wrecked with sobs of rage. I was smiling slightly as I walked past her to hang my cloak on the coat rack; water dripped from the hem of the garment onto the floor with a sad little sound, already forming a puddle in which the flickering torches were reflected.

"Someone will need to clean that," I said, speaking loudly to cover the elf's wails. Upon hearing the word _clean, _Pomy hiccoughed and wheeled about, eyes wide and hopeful — then she caught sight of me, standing by the coat rack in my wet clothes. She drew herself to her full height.

"Pomy… is not… cleaning your mess," she sniffed, her voice broken by sobs.

I turned my head in a slow, purposeful motion to stare at the distraught creature, taking care to keep my features blank, as if I was noticing her for the first time. Then my gaze glided over her as it would over a piece of furniture, and I called out, "Did you hear me, Lali?"

My elf's muffled voice reached me from the living room, speaking a heavily accented English. "Yes, Mademoiselle! Lali will clean up the hallway!"

Pomy's large round eyes slowly filled with new tears of despair. I flashed a smile at her and turned to climb the stairs to my bedroom.

I found a ruffled-feathered owl perched on my desk chair, a scroll of parchment dangling from a small string tied to its leg. I relieved the bird of its burden and offered it my closed fist, wrist bent. With a soft hoot of approval it hopped on my arm, closing its talons on my wrist lightly enough for it not to hurt, obviously used to being carried that way — the old-fashioned way, Aimée would say. I carried it over to my bedroom door, smoothing down the feathers on its back with a light finger, and sent it to the kitchen where it would find food and shelter for the duration of the storm.

I took the time to dry my hair and clothes before I sat at my desk and finally picked up the letter. I did not recognise the seal, an embellished M, but the parchment was of superior quality and my name was written on the scroll with a round, very tidy handwriting.

_Malfoy Manor,_

_November the 9__th__, 1983_

_Dear Mrs. Potter,_

_How are you doing in this awful day? Surely you must be thinking of your native country with some nostalgia, given the absolutely dreadful weather England has been treating you with since your arrival. I've been to France myself a few times when I was a girl, and my memories of it all include a bright blue sky and warm weather. I must say, it is a pity you had to get married in October: autumn and winter are not very pleasant seasons here for a Frenchwoman. Spring, on the other hand, is a delicious time of the year. I do hope you'll be able to come and admire my gardens then; they are my guilty pleasure, I spend nearly all my time there in spring and summer, although I know next to nothing of gardening. _

_I spent a truly lovely evening talking to you at Rodolphus and Bella's, the other day. I've talked to my friends about you a lot, and they are all most eager to meet you. Would you like to come and have tea with us at the Malfoy manor, Tuesday of next week? My husband Lucius will be away on the Dark Lord's orders, so we'll have the house all to ourselves. Bellatrix won't be there, either; her duties as the Minister's wife keep her insanely busy these days. So in the end we'll be five or six, no husbands and no children, and of course, no politics talk. Just a fun tea-party between girls. If the weather is fair — one can only hope — we might even have our tea outside, on the grass. _

_My dear Mrs. Potter, I cannot say how impatient I am at the idea of introducing you to my friends. I do hope you'll be free to come Tuesday, but if you aren't, please write me back and set a date yourself. We'll settle something. I am determined to give you one afternoon away from your duties at your home; I remember how tiring my first weeks as a newlywed were. _

_Hoping to see you very soon, and with my best wishes,_

_Narcissa Malfoy._

I put the letter back down and stared out of the rain-slapped window, torn between conflicting feelings. An afternoon with the charming Mrs. Malfoy would be a much-appreciated break from my dreary day-to-day existence, and even though I was a little nervous at the thought of meeting her friends, who would undoubtedly be all considerably older than I was, I found the prospect of seeing more of the pure-blood English society very exciting.

However, this was the second invitation I had received, and it was from the Minister's sister in law. No matter how gracious and understanding Narcissa was, I could not afford to delay in returning her invitation any more than the Lestranges'. Unfortunately the house wasn't ready to receive anyone, the garden was still a jungle — and I still lacked a human servant.

I supposed the unfinished house would not be such a problem since the living and dining rooms were almost completed; I was not expected to take them for a tour around the first floor, after all. As for the garden, the season and dreadful weather gave me an excellent pretext to keep it away from outsiders' eyes.

The absence of a decent servant who would attend to the guests' needs and serve at dinner, on the other hand, was unforgivable.

With a resigned sigh, I opened a drawer of my overlarge desk and picked two parchments from its insides; they had initially been rolled into tight scrolls, but I had read them so often over the past two days that they were now quite flat. One of them was Bellatrix Lestrange's uncharacteristically helpful letter. The other was from Stan Rocade, the guardian of the Muggleborn Village 4, to whom I had written the day before. His reply had aggravated me enough to make me consider giving up on hiring a chambermaid: not burdening himself with even the most elementary courtesy, he dryly informed me that, should I want to choose a servant among the inhabitants of his village, I would be able to do so between 9 a.m. and midday any day of the week, but that I would have to visit the entire village on my own. His duties didn't give him the leisure to help me in any way, and certainly not to select candidates for the job. I would have to do so myself.

Anger still made my blood boil as I reread the letter. Aside from the lout's utter lack of manners, it was painfully obvious that the name 'Potter' had not impressed him, despite its antiquity; I was starting to get used to this kind of reaction, and could hardly find it surprising after Narcissa's revelations on the part my husband had played in the last war. The burden of bearing his sullied name was growing heavier as days passed, and I thought with some bitterness that Lestrange hadn't made my task any easier.

I didn't have a choice though; I had to go through those first humiliating steps if I ever wanted to take my revenge on them.

I checked my watch; it was 11. I still had time before me.

My mind made up, I got up and grabbed my handbag from under my armchair, dropping both letters into it before sliding the strap up my arm to rest on my shoulder.

"Lali?" I called as I walked out of my bedroom. From downstairs, a shrill old-fashioned curse in French answered me, followed by Pomy's bellow of triumph. I rolled my eyes. God knew where the two house-elves were wrestling now; what was certain was that neither of them was bound to hear my call. I didn't have the time to separate them now, and wasn't feeling inclined to — this was, after all, part of my and Lali's plan. Let them sort it out between themselves.

Taking a right turn, I hurried along the torch-lit corridor that led to James Potter's room.

I must confess I wasn't feeling particularly comfortable at the thought of confronting him again. We had not had a single conversation since our evening at the Lestranges', which had occurred two days before; I had avoided him for the most part, settling for a neutral 'hello' when our paths crossed by accident. The shameful weakness that had made me long for an affectionate gesture from him, like that of a lovesick puppy kicked around by its master, had sickened me enough that I now made a point in excluding him from my thoughts. He was a vault at Gringotts, a name attached to mine like a useless limb, and that was it.

Of course, that line of thoughts, as reasonable as it was, would be hard to maintain if I had to speak to him face to face again. He was the only human face I would have seen in the past two days, after all.

I resolved to make it quick. I paused outside his door, knocked once, and entered before I lost my nerve.

"Yes…?"

He was half-turning to look at me over his shoulder, having apparently been caught in the middle of examining something on his desk. His robes had been discarded on a nearby chair and he stood in just his shirt and trousers, seemingly indifferent to the cold of the room; his fire wasn't even lit. His shirt was crumpled, the collar undone and creased, his hair stuck up in all directions and the shadow of a two-day-old stubble covered his cheeks and chin.

He raised his eyebrows at me, making me suddenly aware of how unceremoniously I had barged into his room, and this just to end up staying immobile on his doorstep and staring at him. Under his politely confused gaze, I fought to keep my hands from smoothing down imaginary wrinkles on my robes.

"I'm going out," I said quickly. "And I'm not sure I'll be back before Mr. Rumfold is done with the dining room, so… would you mind paying him and sending him on his way?"

He blinked. "Mr. Rumfold being?"

"Our architect," I replied through gritted teeth. My old resentment at his lack of interest for what I was doing for _us_ rose in my throat again, with the bitterness of bile.

He turned his back on me once more and bent over his desk, resting his palms on the wooden surface, his head hanging as if in weariness — or annoyance. His slightly sharper tone told me it was the latter. "Why don't you ask one of the house-elves? You usually don't need me for that kind of thing."

"They're both busy. Besides, _your_ house-elf is the one managing my accounts, and she won't take any orders from _me._" I paused before I added, with more venom than I had intended to show, "As you well know."

"I don't have _time_ for this," he grumbled, more to himself than to me, it seemed. He straightened up and raked his fingers through his hair, leaving it more dishevelled than ever. I was almost squirming on the spot with an impatience that soon turned into full-blown anger; the man had a talent for making me absolutely irate with little effort. I wanted to hex something.

"So?" I finally prompted him.

"I'll do it if I have to," he ground out with a visible effort. "But try to come back before he's gone, all right?"

A dozen replies came to my mind, some of them scathing enough to issue from the mouth of a bickering fishwife. I finally settled for a banal, "Thank you", which, admittedly, contained more than a healthy dose of sarcasm.

As I turned to leave, an impulse made me take out my wand and point it at the fireplace. A roaring fire sprung to life, spilling light and warmth into the darkened room.

"Do try to shave someday," I added. "You look like a mess."

I might have slammed the door a little harder than necessary on my way out.

The hallway, I discovered as I took my cloak off its peg, had already been cleaned up. The door to the unfinished dining room was ajar, and amidst the noises and flashes of the workers' spells I could distinguish snatches of Rumfold's usual lamentations. I passed the door in a tearing hurry, praying that none of the workers would draw the old architect's attention to me, and opened another door dissimulated behind a large tapestry hanging in the furthest corner of the hallway. A flight of steps led me down to the kitchen, which had been built in the basement below the dining room.

The house-elves were there, once more busily grappling on the red-tiled floor, and did not even realise I had entered the room. I had no intention to disturb them and walked up to the far wall, which was mostly taken up by the chimney — a huge medieval fireplace in which one could have roasted an entire bull. The hearth was cold and chock-full of ashes. The jar of Floo powder sat on the stone mantelpiece.

I departed.

The spinning green flames dropped me off into a much humbler fireplace, too narrow for two people to stand in it, and so low I had to crouch down in order to emerge into the room beyond. It was a sad, bare-walled little room, at the centre of which a coffee table groaned under the weight of accumulated newspapers, used plates and cutlery, and — oddly enough — a single mud-stained boot. Around the table huddled two squat armchairs that looked as if they came from the same shop as my living room's original furniture. Two windows let in a pallid, avaricious light. The exit, a door with peeling white paint, was on the wall facing the fireplace.

I had taken two steps away from the chimney when that door opened abruptly, and a stout man sporting a red, impressively dimensioned nose pushed his way through, looking rather flustered.

"Mrs. Potter?" he inquired as soon as he caught sight of me.

I nodded once, rather stiffly. The remarkably uncouth letter was still on my mind. "You are Mr. Rocade?" I asked. "I hope it's not too late to—"

"Dear me, dear me, it's not too late, no, not at all," he stuttered. "You can come in any time you wish, yes, of course… Er, I'll, I'll take your cloak now — well, only if you want me to, obviously — and, do you want something to drink, or eat? I, er, I can make tea, and, well, if there's anything else you want…"

"No, thank you," I managed to say, although from the way he kept babbling, whether he had heard me or not was unclear. My initial wariness had gradually given way to bewilderment. I didn't know what stunned me the most, of his maladroit deference, the constant stream of words he kept up, or the wriggling and twitching of his nose as he spoke. The appendage seemed to have a mind of its own. All in all, I was finding it hard to believe the near-insulting letter enclosed in my handbag came from the very same man.

"All right, all right, then, then I'll just take your cloak now… Here… Make yourself at home." He had a jerky little gesture towards one of the stone-hard armchairs. "I'll tell my wife to bring you tea and biscuits while I'm gathering the women… All are good persons, Milady, all of them. Clean and well-mannered. Not greedy, either, no, not at all. Couldn't have come to a better place to find a good servant. Yes. I'll, I'll be off now. To get them."

He bowed in a clumsy little salute. "S'a pleasure, a pleasure to serve you, Milady," he mumbled one last time before retreating towards the door, never daring to turn his back on me.

The door closed behind the man's considerable backside. I sat in an armchair, completely dumbfounded.

I was just taking out my notepad with the vague idea of resuming my sketches when the door opened again on a middle-aged, spherical woman, wearing a large apron and carrying a trail loaded with a cup and saucer, a kettle, a sugar bowl and a pitch of milk. She walked into the room with tiny, pattering little steps, and put her trail on top of the piles of newspapers covering the coffee table. I returned the notepad to my handbag and rose from my seat.

"Don't mind me, Milady, don't mind me," the round little woman immediately tweeted. "I don't want to disturb you."

"But you're not disturbing me at all," I said. "Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Rocade… Aren't you having some?" I added, noting the single cup on the trail.

The woman's face split in a wide smile. She straightened up, wiping her hands on her apron, and spoke with such eagerness I wondered if she had been hoping for such an invitation. "Oh, well if you insist, Milady, I'll get a cup for myself. I see I've forgotten the biscuits anyway, silly me. I'll be right back then."

Mrs. Rocade scampered out of the room again; within a minute she was back, carrying her own cup and a large earthenware bowl that turned out to be full of tiny biscuits.

"I must say, Mrs. Potter, your visit is an honour for us," my hostess said as she poured the amber-coloured tea into the cups. "I am absolutely thrilled to meet you. My husband and I are happy to serve the Dark Lord by guarding the village, of course, but it _does_ get lonely sometimes."

"Don't you ever leave the house?" I asked.

"Well, where would I go? Obviously I can't socialise with Muggleborns. I mean — not that they aren't _nice_, but it's better if they all stay between themselves, isn't it? Most of them used to have wands, you know. They feel they have a right to do magic. It's quite unreasonable, but you can't blame the poor fellows for dreaming, can you? They don't have very happy lives now, after all."

Mrs. Rocade took a sip of her tea. Out of politeness, I brought my cup up to my mouth and tipped it slightly, then put it down before the boiling-hot liquid had the time to scald my lips.

"Of course," Mrs. Rocade went on, "when the village is finished and they all have a job, they'll forget about this wand nonsense. The Dark Lord decided to implant a huge factory halfway between the villages 3 and 4. That should keep them busy; and as long as they're busy, they're happy, because they don't have the time to wish they could use magic."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Rocade, but I'm not sure I understand," I interrupted. "Are all Muggleborns living in villages such as this one?"

Cut off in the middle of her tirade, Mrs. Rocade seemed to lose the ability to speak entirely, and for several seconds she stared at me with a blank look on her round face. "Mrs. Potter…" she said at last in a slow, careful tone. "It's been so for quite a bit of time."

"I've only just arrived to England…"

"Oh, sweet Merlin, I knew it!" Quite evidently, Mrs. Rocade could not be shocked into speechlessness for long. "I spotted your accent. Not that your English isn't good, of course, in fact it's excellent, but you do have a little accent… A _charming_ accent, too. Oh, but I had _no idea _you were newly arrived… Well, you see, Muggleborns aren't rightful wizards. They can't be, since they didn't inherit their magic from anyone. Most of them even prefer Muggles' company to wizards'! I ask you… Anyway their wands have been taken, and they've been gathered in villages like this one, so they could stay between themselves. It's all better this way, isn't it?"

While Mrs. Rocade babbled on, my thoughts wandered back to my school days. I had known a few Muggleborns in Beauxbâtons, and had they not told me about their Muggle parents, I would never have been able to distinguish them from my other classmates — except for their occasional ignorance of the magical culture in which I'd bathed since my childhood. They did not seem inferior to my purer-blooded classmates, talent-wise, but they were different in other, subtler ways.

I thought of Mélanie, with whom I used to share a dormitory. She was Muggleborn. I imagined her deprived of her wand and forced to live, without magic, in a nameless village.

A frisson ran up my spine and I set my tea back on the trail, for fear my trembling hands would spill it all over my clothes.

"…as the Minister said. He's a remarkable man. Such charisma! By the way, Mrs. Potter…" Mrs. Rocade's chirping voice suddenly was very serious, almost urgent. I looked up and put on a smile. "I… I wanted to tell you how sorry Albert is about that letter he sent you. You'd be right to be furious at us, of course, but I swear we had _no idea_ who you were. How _distraught_ he was when Mrs. Lestrange herself mailed him to say you'd be coming… He left at once to see if there were suitable candidates for you. He was out all morning!"

The plump little woman was now peering at me expectantly; her benign smile was gone, replaced by a strained, uneasy look, and she wrung her hands in her lap in an apparently unconscious gesture.

So here was the explanation for Rocade's sudden change of attitude. Mrs. Lestrange had taken it upon herself to write to him and tell him to expect my visit… How… strange.

"I will tell Mrs. Lestrange you were most gracious to me," I reassured Mrs. Rocade. As she had probably commanded them to be. Indeed, what an admirable solicitude from the Minister's wife.

Mrs. Rocade beamed with gratitude. "Thank you, thank you, that's a huge weight of my chest! Poor Albert was so scared of offending you… If there's anything we can do for you in the future, don't hesitate! It's an honour for us… Mrs. Lestrange's friend …"

We were interrupted by shuffling and trampling sounds coming from behind the door. Mrs. Rocade's smile, if it was possible, went even wider.

"Right on time!" she trilled. "Albert's back. Now, before you choose your new chambermaid, can I be so bold as to give you a word of advice?" Her eyes narrowed a bit, her smile turning conspiratorial.

"Go on," I said, laughing despite myself at the woman's theatrical behaviour.

She leant towards me and put her hand before her mouth, like a schoolgirl trying not to get caught talking in class. "If one of the candidates is a single mother, choose her without hesitation," she whispered. "Single mothers are always concerned about what might happen to their child. You won't find a more obedient servant. Plus, they are less likely to go gallivanting around with men, if you don't mind me saying that."

I slowly nodded, my smile fading from my face. "I see…"

Again, the advice about single mothers. That was… intriguing. And certainly a bit too much to be a mere coincidence.

The door opened and Rocade's massive silhouette, soaked and covered in mud up to the knees, appeared on the threshold. He had another clumsy little salute in my direction.

"The candidates are here, Milady, if you wish to see them. I haven't told them your name, of course."

"Why not?"

"The less Muggleborns know about the Dark Lord's court, the better, dear Mrs. Potter," Mrs. Rocade intervened in a low voice. "Mrs. Lestrange warned us that only the woman you choose to hire should know your name. It's very important."

Rocade had an approving grunt. "Now, Martha, take that trail elsewhere and leave the lady in peace," he said gruffly.

"Your tea was delicious, Mrs. Rocade," I said as my hostess cleared the coffee table. I was rewarded by another bright smile and a little curtsey. As Mrs. Rocade scurried out of the room, her husband stepped back and, looking to his right at someone I couldn't see, barked, "All right, you can get in, one by one. You first."

And so the first woman was ushered into the room.

The door closed and we were left alone.

There was a long pause during which the strange woman and myself stared at each other in silence. If I felt a little timid, the Muggleborn was livid with anxiety; she was tall and too thin, with damp coppery hair that she had tied back in a poorly-made bun, harmonious features — if a tad too sharp — and large green eyes, too big for her pale, hollowed face.

"Well, take a seat," I said, gesturing to the second armchair.

She nodded. "Thank you." Her voice was strong, deeper than mine and a little brusque; I was reminded of Bellatrix's voice, although contrary to the Minister's wife, the woman spoke without a trace of malice or mockery in her tone. She moved to sit down and in doing so revealed a little boy, no older than two or three, who was striving to hide behind his mother's legs. I raised an eyebrow; the child shot at me a terrified glance and gripped his mother's skirts more tightly, causing her to stumble.

"Shh, Harry," the woman cooed, taking the little one's hand.

"And… this is?" I asked, taken aback by the child's appearance.

The woman tried to smile. "This is my son, Harry," she said. "I hope you don't mind if he stays with me, he'd be terrified to be left alone…" Her voice trailed away as she looked at me hopefully.

A mixture of pity and self-consciousness tightened my throat.

_You don't know anything about the real world… you have no idea what people less privileged than you are going through._

I slightly shook my head to dissipate the disturbingly clear memory of Potter's words — why were they ringing so forcefully in my mind now, when I had not thought of them in days? — and composed my face into a distant expression. It was better to keep this as professional as possible. "I don't mind," I said without warmth. "How old is he?"

"Three years old."

"And his father?" I asked without thinking.

The woman's face went blank; averting her eyes, she settled in the chair and heaved the boy up to seat him on her lap. "My husband is dead," she said without looking up.

"Oh… I'm sorry."

She acknowledged my answer with a nod as she smoothed down the hair of her child, who was curled up against her and stared at me with wide green eyes from under the wild black locks that covered his forehead. I held his gaze for a second before returning it to his mother.

"So, what's your name?" I started brusquely, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Lily… Evans," she said. Her voice was bizarrely strained, as if uttering her name cost her a great effort of will, but it had not quivered. Her arms tightened around her son, rocking him gently.

"Lily," I repeated, calling her by her first name as I had done with every human servant I had ever had. "Have you ever served in a house?"

She met my eyes steadily. "No, I haven't. But I'm capable. I've kept my husband's house for several years, and I'm familiar with all household tasks."

"I won't ask my chambermaid to scrub the floor or iron clothes," I said. "Her tasks will be simpler: take care of guests, serve at meals, that kind of thing."

"I've never done that," she admitted without batting an eyelash. "But I've seen it done before. I also know that there are different customs in each household, so if you want to tell me exactly what you expect from me, I believe I will give you satisfaction. I'm a quick learner."

Her voice was firm and well-modulated, like that of someone used to speaking in public; I recognised how cleverly she made her inexperience sound like an advantage, and the subtle blend of confidence and simplicity in her tone of voice, suggesting rather than asserting her competence. The way she talked and held herself made me feel she was as educated as I was — in fact, since she was older, probably more than I was — and certainly enough that she could hope for better than a chambermaid's position.

I regarded her for a few silent seconds. Her act was, all in all, very good. An inattentive eye would have missed the involuntary contraction of her hands that betrayed her nervousness.

I put down the notepad on which I had been scribbling while she talked. "Why do you want this job, Mrs. Evans?" I asked brusquely. "It's a thankless work, and I'm afraid I can't afford to pay my servants as much as any other pure-blood would."

She laid her cheek on top of her little boy's dark head. "It doesn't matter to me. This village isn't a place to raise a child… Milady," she said in a low voice.

I nodded, my eyes irresistibly drawn to the window behind her, but the rain that trickled down the glass blurred the view of the village beyond into a blend of brown and grey. I hesitated briefly then stooped and rummaged into my handbag for my purse. Drawing it, I picked five Galleons from it — about all I could spare — and held them out to Lily. She took them, staring at me enquiringly.

"I'm sorry," I said, very gently.

Lily, from pale, went paper white. "But… why?" she stammered.

"You aren't suited for the job." I rose and smoothed down my robes. "I'm afraid that's all I can do for you at the moment."

"Wait — what's the problem? Is it Harry? You won't see him, I swear. I'll feed him with my salary, I'll—"

"No, Harry isn't the problem. You aren't the kind of person I'm looking for, that's all." I walked up to the door and halted there, my hand on the doorknob, then turned to face her. From her seat she stared at me, mouthing words that would not come out of her throat, then I saw her horrified, supplicant expression ebb away, as if eroded under my own gaze. She got to her feet.

"Then you can keep your money," she said in a toneless voice. "I'm not a beggar."

"And I can't send you back without giving you something," I countered. "Goodbye, Mrs. Evans." And meeting the cowering child's eyes again, I added, "Goodbye Harry."

Eager to end the unpleasant scene, I opened the door. Lily Evans didn't spare me a glance as she walked out, straight-backed, her son's small hand in hers.

"Next please."

* * *

I left the Rocades an hour later with my new chambermaid. Anne was a fifteen-year-old girl, homeless and underfed, her skinny little body covered in grime and scabs. She was meek and well-mannered, though, and I had not hesitated before hiring her. She probably needed the job more than any other candidate, Lily Evans included.

Lily had been the only single mother of the lot of candidates, and considering Bellatrix Lestrange's repeated suggestions, I now strongly suspected I had been expected to hire her specifically. The solicitude and advice from the Minister's wife rang false; I could not believe her intentions were completely innocent. This, however, was not the main reason why I had rejected Lily's application. In truth, my motives were more down-to-earth: the young woman was closer to my husband's age than I was. She was also prettier — or more striking, at any rate; I wasn't blind or vain enough not to see that. Proud, determined and poor as she was, she inspired compassion. All this made her very attractive in numerous ways, and my situation vis-à-vis my husband being anything but ensured, affectively speaking, I would have been a fool to let her inside my house permanently.

Despite this logical reasoning, however, the memory of little Harry's wide-eyed gaze was uncomfortably tugging at my conscience. All matters considered I was relieved to finally depart from the sinister Village Number 4 and rejoin the shelter of my own house.

For the rest of the day I undertook to turn poor, filthy, starving Anne into a presentable servant. After she had eaten, washed, and changed into some of my old clothes — which would have to do until I could afford to buy her a uniform — we discussed of her wages and days out as I installed her in her new quarters and showed her around the house. Her quiet nature matched well my own, I found, and she was nimble and eager to please. I was very happy about my choice.

I pushed the red-haired woman and her baby boy out of my mind. I had done all I could for them, after all.

The next morning, I pushed open the kitchen door and was surprised to find Anne standing up very straight near the table, her hands behind her back. She met my questioning gaze and instantly dipped into an approximate curtsey.

"I wanted to make your breakfast," she said very fast, stumbling over her words in such a way I could barely understand her, "but the… the little… the little big-eared creature yelled at me and did it herself."

I glanced down at the table, where my coffee and toasts waited, as usual, neatly spread on a napkin of the midnight blue and silver colours of Syrnac house. I looked up at Anne again, who had turned an unexpected bright shade of red. She looked so crestfallen I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling. I did not quite manage to keep the amusement out of my voice.

"Cooking my breakfast is Lali's prerogative," I explained. "And she's rather fierce about keeping her advantages… Why would you want to cook my meals, anyway? I thought I had told you it wasn't part of your duties."

She hung her head, blinking rapidly. "I — I'm sorry Mistress. It won't happen again."

I suddenly lost all desire to smile. She looked ready to burst into tears.

"I wasn't reproaching you anything," I said, a little startled by her reaction. "You've never served in a mansion before, I wasn't expecting you to be perfect on your first day. Here, where's Lali now?"

"Ici, Mademoiselle! Lali arrive!"

My elf's squeaky, high-pitched voice made Anne jump and back off against the wall, her panic-filled eyes darting left and right. When Lali appeared with a loud crack in the middle of the kitchen, halfway between the girl and me, Anne let out a little squeak and pressed herself harder into the wall, as if trying to sink right through the solid stone. My elf wiped her hands on her midnight blue toga and glared at the terrified chambermaid before levelling on me a disapproving look.

"Mademoiselle should eat," she went on, still in French. "The coffee of Mademoiselle is going to cool."

"In a minute," I answered in English. "Anne, this is Lali, my old house-elf. Have you met a house-elf before?"

Anne shook her head, her grey eyes very wide.

"They're creatures in service of a family," I said. "Lali is my family's house-elf and always wears blue. You will also meet Pomy, in white, who is from my husband's family. The house-elves clean up the house, cook the meals and take care of the laundry."

Anne looked up at me, frowning in confusion, but visibly unsure as to whether she should interrupt me or not. I relieved her from her uncertainty by answering her question before she had the chance to ask it. "Your _own_ tasks will be to serve at meals, go to the market, help me with whatever I ask from you…" I hesitated for a second here. "…And ultimately, when children are born, you will take care of them. Is it clear now?"

She nodded thoughtfully, then caught herself and hastily mumbled, "Yes Mistress."

"Good," I said, venturing a smile in an attempt to reassure her.

If anything, she blushed more deeply. I gave up.

"You can go back to your room, I'll ring if I need you."

Anne curtseyed again and disappeared through a side door of the kitchen, which led into her quarters. With a sigh of relief, I sat down at the table and seized my cup of coffee; it was black and still steaming, and the delicious aroma tickled my nose, awakening my ravenous hunger. Lali watched approvingly as I started devouring the pile of lightly-buttered toasts she had prepared for me.

"So the skinny girl is Mademoiselle's new chambermaid?" my elf said after a few silent minutes, easily slipping back into French.

I nodded into my cup. "Her name's Anne," I said after taking a sip. "She's fifteen and has never served before."

"Mademoiselle did well to choose someone younger than herself," Lali said with an appreciative nod. "Lali would not have liked an older woman, oh no. She prolly would've been an arrogant beast. This one, Lali likes."

"Perfect," I said with a grin. "I hope Pomy will be just as accommodating."

Lali made a face. "I is doubting it, Mademoiselle. The English elf is a rude and filthy creature, she is. She won't be nice to anyone but her Master. But that is okay, Lali will be nice and kind to the new girl. Put her on our side."

I frowned as I turned to look at her. "You think we need to put her on our side?"

The elf bowed deeply. "Lali dares think Mademoiselle needs an ally in this house. Poor Lali can't protect Mademoiselle and fulfil her mission at the same time, impossible, Mademoiselle. This girl already wants to please Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle needs to make her _love_ her, too. Lali thinks that's what Madame would have done."

I slowly laid my cup of coffee back on the Syrnac napkin and pensively stared down into the opaque liquid. Lali would know more about the past relationship between my mother and her servants than me — even in the times of my childhood, my mother was a remote, beautiful, delicate creature, who sometimes would take my hand and walk with me through the sumptuous gardens of Syrnac manor, speaking of society, of manners, of lineage and history, while I listened in awed silence. I had never seen her deal with servants. It seemed a task too trivial for my mother to ever have bothered with.

"Did Mother choose her servants herself?" I asked Lali.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, of course. Madame knew that all her servants must be devoted to Syrnac house."

"Of course," I murmured. I lifted my cup of coffee to my lips again and drank deeply. Social interaction had never been my forte; people who were friends with me were people who _tried_ to. I found little Anne quite endearing, and I did not mind developing a mistress-servant relationship that would be closer than most conventions allowed — but the problem was, I had no idea where to start.

I rested my elbows on the table and leant my forehead against the cup held in my clasped hands. "How do I do it, Lali?" I mumbled, my eyes closed.

I felt my elf edging closer and nudging my side with her pointed nose in an affectionate gesture. "Let not my Marie trouble herself so," she said. "Lali will keep the girl busy all morning, show her the house in detail and the cutlery and Mademoiselle's bedroom and clothes. Lali noticed it's not raining, for once in this wretched country, so Mademoiselle should go gardening. After lunch Mademoiselle should take the servant girl with her, to help her with the gardening." I dropped my hands from my face and turned to throw at Lali a puzzled look. The elf had a wide, slightly toothless smile. "Trust Lali, Mademoiselle. It will work."

I did not voice my thoughts, but I highly doubted it.

* * *

Halfway through an afternoon of gardening with Anne, I doubted it even more.

The first hour was difficult. We were working in the field of brambles, cutting and uprooting — I used my wand, although more often than not I found myself tugging at the most recalcitrant plants with both hands, and Anne worked with a heavy pair of rusty secateurs Lali had dug up God knew were — and at first the task was visibly too new and too hard for the British girl to allow her concentration to waver. After I heard her grunting in her effort to uproot a particularly vicious bramble, which I had frozen beforehand to prevent any retaliation, I straightened up and called for a break.

The frail girl gladly released the bramble and sank to the earthy ground. Her old, tattered clothes were covered in mud up to the waist, as were mine, and we were both breathing hard and sweating from the exertion. As I made my way to her I wondered if a passerby would have been able to tell the mistress from the servant.

I sat on the ground next to Anne. "It's worth it, you know," I said after looking into her red, sweaty face. "I intend to make a beautiful garden here, once we've got rid of all the brambles."

"Can't we… get rid of them… with magic?" Anne panted, obviously too tired to be timid.

I shook my head. "Plants have a resilience to magic of their own. We could make them disappear with magic, but they'd grow straight up in one night. The only solution is to uproot them one by one, by hand if we must, then cast a charm on the ground. Have you never had —" I searched around for the right words, "— classes about magical plants, at school?"

"Herbology," she confirmed with a nod. That was the word that had been escaping me. "But I only went at school for one year."

I waited, but she didn't elaborate. Circling her folded knees with her arms, she rested her chin on top of them and dropped her gaze to the ground, seized again by her usual shyness.

"Why didn't you stay at school?" I asked at last.

She glanced sideways at me, looking perplexed and a little wary, as if wondering if I was trying to trick her. I was irresistibly reminded of a skinny, muddy rabbit eyeing a fox. It felt a little odd. I wasn't used to being the fox.

"Well… because then the war started," she slowly said. "M-my parents got killed, and the Death Eaters took my — they took the wand I had before. And then I lived with other Muggleborns, in one village, then another." She nudged a little heap of damp earth with her foot. "I never really got to know much about magic."

I played distractedly with my wristwatch. This was, I felt, the moment when I needed to tell her a bit of myself, in exchange for what she had just told me. The idea repelled me, and not only because I wasn't naturally prone to heartfelt confidences and comforting hugs. I had been quite miserable in the past few weeks, but I felt uncomfortable comparing my predicament with Anne's own misfortunes. It sounded a little indecent.

_You don't know anything about the real world…_

The silence stretched. I struggled to find words to say; Anne stared down at the ground. Finally, we got back to work. Not another word was exchanged between us for the next two hours.

The daylight weakened fast under the trees. Around four, it was already difficult to distinguish the thorny branches which crawled across the wet ground in crisscrossing patterns, tripping us at each step. After such an occurrence, which nearly caused me to dive head-first into a bush of tangled brambles, I decided we had worked enough for the day. Exhausted, aching, covered in sweat and mud, Anne and I edged our way back to the house, a biting wind on our heels.

Lali's industrious hand had already lit the torches in the hallway; the six flames were reflected in the polished tiles as in a pool of very still water, and the six spectres of flames, glistening palely on the floor, curiously enhanced the feeling of deep loneliness laying heavy on the quiet hallway. The silence was total, and a little eerie. It took me a second to realise why it innerved me so: no sound or light came from the dining room. Rumfold's workers were gone. The room was finished.

I straightened up from where I had been leaning on the wall in sheer fatigue, threw my hood back, and undid the fastening of my well-worn cloak with numb, clumsy fingers. I was just about to take it off when I felt small hands tentatively grasping the material of the cloak at the shoulders.

I froze and glanced behind me. Anne was chewing on her lip and cast at me nervous looks from under half-lowered eyelids.

"Thank you," I said, allowing her to take my cloak off. She nodded as she folded it neatly over one arm, a gesture Lali had probably practiced with her this very morning, then tiredly walked up to the coat rack and rose on tiptoes to hang the garment on its peg.

"Here," I said, following her and helping her with the too-tall coat rack. My new chambermaid was even shorter than I was. "We really need a new coat rack," I said in a mild tone.

"Yes, Milady," Anne mumbled.

I let my hand slide along one side of the cloak, smoothing the frayed rim. Next to me, Anne tried to brush the mud off the material with the edge of one hand.

"I lost my parents too, three years ago," I murmured suddenly, without looking at her.

The grandfather clock on the far wall ticked off several seconds in the still air of the hallway. Anne ran her fingers over the cloak, her gestures only serving to smudge the dirt all over it.

"One gets… lonely," I said. "It lasts a time. Then, eventually, it becomes more bearable."

I traced the edge of the cloak with a light finger. I felt the presence, in a far corner of my mind, of the fourteen-year-old who, one day, had been pulled out of school to stare at the remains of her parents, still and wax-faced on their death bed, before she watched as the coffins were lowered into the earth of the family graveyard. She was always with me, wide-eyed and cold and shaking, her throat too tight to even let through a sob, loneliness, fear, incomprehension and despair crushing her heart until it threatened to break. She was a constant, quiet company. But eventually, I had grown out of her.

I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them again. They were dry.

"You're dismissed until dinner," I said in one breath.

"Thank you, Milady." Anne's voice was as low as mine, and I distantly registered something in it that I had never perceived before. It sounded calmer, older, and weary.

I hardly saw my chambermaid slip past me to disappear through the hidden door leading down to the kitchens, and I doubt she was paying me the slightest bit of attention, as well. We were both lost in memories of our own.

* * *

_Thunder rumbled, a distant growl that slowly grew louder before bursting in a deafening explosion. The ground shook with it, and the wind howled in answer. Sheets of icy rain swung before my eyes, drenching me even through the Impervious charms worked into the fabric of my cloak, turning the ground to mud around my feet. Flashing lightning pierced the pitch-black night, throwing a harsh light upon the soaked fields on either side of the country road. There was not a soul in sight. _

_Understandable. No one in their right mind would venture outside in this weather. I absentmindedly reached for my wand — I would have welcomed a heating charm — before remembering that any spell performed in this isolated area would attract Voldemort's spies like as much flies on a dragon's dung. I cursed and shoved my hands back inside the pockets of my robes. _

_No one was coming. Was it possible that I had missed Remus? I was more than an hour's late; I had had a hard time shaking off the Death Eater that dogged my footsteps, day and night — although I doubt he knew I had noticed him. In all likelihood, he was cursing himself for his clumsiness — possibly in more senses than one — while I stood there freezing in the rain. The thought cheered me up a little._

"_Dear me," said a thoughtful, terribly familiar voice, sounding just behind me. "I feel quite bad for pulling you out of bed and making you wait in this weather."_

_I spun around and staggered backwards, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs, my eyes wide in shock and incredulity. _

_Before me stood a man I had long thought dead — sharp blue eyes sparkling behind half-moon glasses, long silvery hair and beard fluttering in the savage winds, midnight blue robes flapping about his tall silhouette._

"_No, James," Albus Dumbledore told me with a smile. "The fight isn't over."_


	9. Spilt Blood

**A/N:** I just got an anonymous review, from someone who was shocked by Marie-Antoinette's ignorance regarding the fate of Parisian Muggles (in chapter 1, "Adieux and Exile", after the Prologue). This oddity was to be explained in later chapters; however, what I had written in the original chapter drove the reviewer to wrong conclusions, instead of making them wonder what was going on. This is my mistake as an author.

I have no other means to respond to this - rather virulent - review but through this AN, so let me tell you here:** I posted a modified version of the incriminated chapter. I hope it will remove a few doubts and keep you interested.**

* * *

**Chapter Eight: Spilt Blood**

"So how do you like England, Mrs. Potter?"

I smiled at the banal question as though I heard it for the first time. "I am all prepared to like it, Mrs. Jugson," I answered sweetly. "But I'm afraid it does not like me much."

Thunder exploded at that moment, in a torrent of noise that hammered against the high windows of Malfoy Manor and shattered the Soundproof Spells laid on the glass panes. Overpowered, the magical protections went out with sad, exhausted little snaps, which were soon lost in the uproar of the sky's fury.

"… as you can see," I finished, gesturing towards the darkened windows.

The Malfoys' small tea room rang with high-pitched peals of polite laughter. Mrs. Jugson forced her plain, pasty-white features into a grin.

"I think our good old England doesn't like anyone much, right now," Narcissa Malfoy intervened, setting her cup and saucer back on the coffee table. "Excuse me for a second."

She rose from her armchair and left the circle of ladies, holding up the folds of her long robes in one hand to keep herself from tripping over the hem. As soon as she had disappeared from my field of vision, five pairs of eyes shone towards me again, gleaming golden in the firelight, eyeing me with the ferocious curiosity displayed by vultures before a wounded rabbit.

There sat Mrs. Amy Jugson, wife to an obscure undersecretary at the Ministry for Magic; she looked around thirty, had a little more weight than was fashionable, and her features and mind were equally boring. She had come with her young cousin, Rosemary Rookwood, who curled up on a cushion at her feet, her skirts spread out around her in a cleverly disposed mess. Because of her tiny form, slim and supple as a snake, Rosemary's upper body seemed that of an eel-like creature emerging from a pool of silk. I suspected she enjoyed enhancing the unsettling side of her physical aspect.

On Mrs. Jugson's right, a low armchair had received the young Mrs. Wilkes. Laura Wilkes was, at only nineteen, closest to my age. Her face, pointy and freckled, was the least expressive I had ever seen: even when she smiled the lines of it hardly moved. She seemed to be a little ill and had barely said two words all afternoon. Her gaze wasn't as intimidating as the other ladies'—perhaps this was so because she seemed lost in her own thoughts, and only turned her glassy eyes on me because everyone around her did.

Mrs. Wilkes noticed I was watching her and straightened up in her seat with the look of a schoolgirl caught slouching by her governess. Porcelain chinked in protest as her cup teetered in its saucer, spilling hot tea over her hand and wrist.

"Ow!… No, don't worry, it's not that hot. I'm just so clumsy!" the girl lamented as two other ladies hurried forward with a napkin and concerned exclamations.

"Don't fret, darling, by the look of it Cissy's carpet can take a few drops of tea," Rosemary Rookwood said. "Spill enough and she might even give it to you!"

Mrs. Wilkes went scarlet at Rosemary's words but bravely tried to laugh with the others. I didn't laugh. It wasn't necessary that I partake of the general hilarity since I didn't know what Miss Rookwood was referring to; it suited me fine, as I was starting to dislike her with all my heart. I hated her voice most of all: it drawled on certain syllables, and the pitch of it changed unexpectedly at the ends of her sentences. It gave me odd chills, not unlike those I got when I heard nails screeching on a blackboard.

"There," Narcissa's voice called from behind me. "Forgive me for this absence, I had instructions to give…"

She had not finished speaking that the Soundproof Spells came back to life, forming blue halos that spread and flickered over the windows like burning gas, at the command of invisible hands. The howling of the wind dimmed. I strained my ears but did not catch the lightest pattering of feet or snapping of fingers; Narcissa's house-elf was a skilful one.

Smiling in satisfaction, our hostess stepped back into the circle and sat back in her armchair in a graceful fluttering of robes. "So what did I miss?" she asked, a playful expression on her face. "Did Rosemary burn a hole in the carpet with her venom?"

"Not quite yet," replied Rosemary promptly. "Laura beat me to it."

Her pixie-like face bore a mischievous grin. Narcissa threw her head back and laughed as poor Mrs. Wilkes's blush deepened. Apparently not noticing her guest's embarrassment, Mrs. Malfoy picked up her cup of tea again and, still chuckling, raised it towards Rosemary as though saluting a particularly witty word. Rosemary bowed her head a little in answer.

I was looking at them both from behind my cup of tea; I now had the absolute certitude that these two women detested each other.

"I'm so sorry, Narcissa," stammered Laura Wilkes. "It's just a few drops of tea, I hope you—"

Narcissa waved the apology away in a negligent move of her hand. "It's fine, love, don't trouble yourself over that. Carpets can be cleaned up. And thank Merlin for it," she added with a giggle. "My little Draco drooled milk all over Lucius's new Persian rug yesterday! I thought he was going to curse something."

Sonia Laurenson, one of the two guests who had rushed to Laura Wilkes's aid with a napkin, straightened up in her seat and jutted her chest forward as though defying anyone to contest her right to speak up.

"Fathers," she sententiously said, "have no idea how to deal with babies. Did you know I caught my Albert trying to reason Leila the other night? I said to him, 'Albert, you're an elite wizard, but you know nothing about children!'"

"Don't get me wrong," said Narcissa. "Draco has Lucius wrapped around his little finger; even if he wanted to scold him, he would be unable to. But that rug was truly beautiful."

"Of course, of course," Sonia muttered, deflating like an old balloon. Rosemary snickered.

"Where's little Draco, Narcissa? I would _love_ to see how he's grown," intervened the other lady who had helped wiping up the spilt tea. She was an ageless girl, with pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes—but contrary to Narcissa, who was beautiful as white gold, she just looked colourless. All throughout the afternoon the other ladies had rarely taken any notice of her, and she had been trying to make up for it by constantly flattering whoever she was talking to. Her name was Harriet Selwyn.

"He's asleep, thank heavens," Narcissa replied. "And the house-elf will take care of him should he wake up. Which reminds me, I really should get a new chambermaid. If the first thing Draco sees is the elf's face when he wakes up, he will have nightmares."

"A new chambermaid? What happened to your Mary?" asked Mrs. Jugson. "She looked like a fine, competent girl. Unlike my Lydia, who's been awfully neglectful lately. I hardly recognise her!"

Narcissa pursed her lips. "I dismissed her."

Her final tone wasn't lost for anyone. Harriet hurried to change the subject by remarking the storm seemed to be slightly calmer than it was a few minutes ago, and we all hastily agreed. Rosemary yawned ostentatiously.

"Oh, _look_ at the time," she suddenly exclaimed. I blinked. She wore no watch, and there was no clock in the room.

"What time is it?" I asked.

Rosemary's face split again in that malicious grin of hers.

"Time to go to the theatre, of course!" Her girly voice went so high-pitched on the last word it was almost a scream. Muscles in my back involuntarily contracted.

"Is it really time already?" asked Mrs. Jugson, eyeing the rain-washed windows with a disgusted expression.

"Of course, we mustn't be late. There is a most wonderful play tonight, people will murder for seats." Rosemary Rookwood rose from her cushion and twirled on the spot to force the liquid folds of her dress to fall correctly into place. Taken by surprise, the other guests stood a little late; Narcissa was frowning.

"Ah well, if that's so, I imagine we have to leave you, dear Narcissa," Mrs. Jugson sighed.

"Oh, wait!" Rosemary suddenly cried. "Wait, wait, wait! Cissy, I just had the most perfect idea!"

"Tell us, dear, we can hardly wait to hear it."

"Why don't we all go?" Rosemary looked round with the face of a five-year-old being presented with a piece of candy. "As a gang of girls?"

Mrs. Jugson looked uncertain. "My… my dear, are you sure this would be considered proper?"

"To hell with proper!… I can get you seats, I know someone. That way we'd all spend the evening together!"

I cast a quick glance around. Harriet Selwyn and Sonia Laurenson were clearly tempted; Laura Wilkes, although she looked sicker than ever, was trying to smile and appear interested.

As for me, I was thinking that, if theatres in London were anything like those in Paris, I couldn't afford half a seat—let alone the kind of clothing that was required to sit in it.

"This is very tempting, and I'd very much like to go," I said in my shyest, most polite voice. "But… Right now, there are two architects, five workers, two house-elves and a chambermaid in training who all require my supervision. I can't afford to leave them on their own for more than a few hours."

"Oh, come on dear! You have a _husband!"_ Rosemary shrilly protested. "And not any husband—James Potter himself! I'm sure he'll do all the supervision you need!"

There was something I didn't like in the way she had said my husband's name. Her tone was heavy with insinuations. What didn't help was that I had the feeling she had waited a long time for the perfect opportunity to say it—in exactly the right tone.

"It's not my husband's place to command to the servants," I said rather stiffly.

"Marie is right," Narcissa unexpectedly declared. "I have a lot of duties that I wouldn't ever leave to Lucius, competent wizard as he may be. And that's why," she turned to Rosemary, "I see myself forced to turn down your invitation as well. But we'll meet again very soon, and when we do, do tell us everything about the play!"

"I won't go either," said Laura Wilkes in one breath. "I'm not feeling well."

"Of course, darling, you shouldn't go running to a play in your current state!" said Harriet Selwyn. "Go home, go home. Rosemary—Sonia and I will be delighted to—"

"Yes, you're right," Rosemary interrupted. "Better to save those seats for another time, right? I'll just go with Amy then."

Amy Jugson said something about things being more appropriate that way, and both witches bid Narcissa farewell. Rosemary's choice of interpreting Harriet's words as another refusal rather than an agreement had left Sonia and Harriet crestfallen, and they couldn't hold back a few bitter words as they, too, departed, taking Laura Wilkes with them.

"I spent a very nice afternoon, Narcissa," I said when I was left alone with my hostess. "The tea was delicious."

She flashed at me a bright smile. "Thank you, Marie; indeed the tea was drinkable. But I hadn't expected these five to stare at you all evening. I hope you didn't take it the wrong way…"

"Don't worry about that. I'm new, I would have been naïve not to expect it."

"Still, it was bordering rude." She had beckoned me closer and we were now walking through the corridors of Malfoy Manor, talking idly. "Rosemary isn't ever a model of courtesy, come to think of it. She loves nothing more than making people laugh, most often at other people's expenses. Laura is an easy target—she's usually livelier than that, but it's her first pregnancy and she's terribly sick. As for Amy Jugson, well, you can't blame her if she doesn't like you. She's fat, ugly and boring."

The last part was so unexpected I spontaneously burst out laughing. Narcissa joined me in my laughter.

"Marie," she said once we had calmed down a little. "Do me a favour. Call me Cissy. Narcissa sounds so solemn."

I smiled at her, inwardly noting she had already taken the initiative to shorten my own name. "With pleasure."

We had reached the main hall of the Manor; hardly any light filtered through the two loopholes that pierced the façade wall. The moving candlelight caught in the folds of Narcissa's robes. She had familiarly linked her arm with mine, and maybe it was that closeness that gave me the courage to voice my thoughts.

"From your letter, I had understood that they were your closest friends…"

She turned her face to me, looking a little surprised.

"Oh, but they are. Amy Jugson is a vague cousin of mine, very concerned about what's proper and what isn't—as you noticed. She used to babysit me when I was too young to go to Hogwarts; she's fond of me and very faithful, the poor darling. Rosemary was my Hogwarts best friend… We're not as close as we used to be." She paused, then added, lowering her voice, "She had hopes of marrying Lucius, you know."

I was shocked to silence for a few seconds. "I can see how that must have strained your relationship," I ventured at last.

"Yes." Narcissa sighed. "We never ever talked about it, of course, but I know she's still a little bitter. I can't really blame her. My dearest wish is that she would find a good husband and be happy, so we can be best friends again. I love her with all my heart."

The lie was so smooth I was almost convinced I had misread Narcissa's attitude earlier. Unfortunately, she couldn't help casting a furtive glance in my direction, destroying in a fraction of a second all the effects of her little speech. The charm was broken; I was on my guard at once.

"It shouldn't be so long," I said with wide-eyed enthusiasm. "She is very pretty. There's something special about her."

"I know _exactly_ what you mean!" Narcissa smiled to me again. I smiled back.

"What about Laura?"

She giggled at my childish curiosity. "I know what you're going to say," she said. "Laura is dull and impossibly shy, but she's very pleasant company when you get to know her. I helped her furnish her house when she got married, as she's not very rich. It was no bother at all—I had enough old furniture to fill up every house in Suffolk."

And give Rosemary the opportunity to jeer at both Narcissa and Laura, I privately thought. _Spill enough tea on the carpet and she might give it to you._

"… As for Harriet and Sonia," my hostess went on, "they're Laura's friends from Hogwarts. Nice girls—always ready to help."

"And where do I fit?"

"You, darling," Narcissa said with a broad grin, "are my friend from France. It's so chic!"

We laughed again.

Narcissa led me outside the Manor through a little door hidden behind a tapestry. Iron grey clouds rolled across the sky, torn here and there by forked lightning bolts that licked the ground and vanished in a flash. The wind flung around heaps of rain and dishevelled the distant woods. My last goodbye to Narcissa Malfoy was drowned in a rolling of thunder, and I saw her smile and wave her hand, signalling me she had understood. I waved back, hauled my hood over my head and stepped off the doorstep to Disapparate.

I stumbled on my own threshold and instinctively grasped the bell chain to hold myself straight; I understood my mistake a second too late when my new shoes slipped on the wet tiles, just as a dull, low, awfully loud note boomed mournfully throughout the house. Cursing to myself, I staggered upright and unlocked the door with a flick of my wand. The granitic house was still humming with the echoes of the bell chime when I leant all my weight on the door, trying to escape the redoubling rain.

The door swung open, I rushed forward—but my momentum was cut short by a loud thud, a yelp of pain, and James Potter fell back to the tiled floor, clutching his face.

I remained rooted to the threshold, my hand still on the door and the rain wetting my back, while Potter grunted out a long, hoarse "Aaahhhhh." He was sitting on the tiles; both his hands covered his face where the heavy oak pane had hit him. He must have been standing just behind the door when I had pushed it open.

"What did you ring the bell for?" said Potter testily. He lowered his hands to blink up at me, and my stomach lurched: blood was pouring out from his eyebrow, covering the right side of his face in a sleek coating that glistened black in torchlight. His glasses were broken.

"What did you stand behind the door for?" I asked in return, in a voice that was a lot higher pitched than usual. I couldn't look away from the blood spurting from between his fingers and drawing long, lazy lines across his hands.

"I was answering the _bell,_" Potter growled. "Hey, would you close the door? I'm freezing."

I did as he asked and approached him cautiously. He had not made a single attempt to rise from his sitting position—which was just as well, as he might be dizzy from the impact; for the moment he was trying, without much success, to mop up the blood from his face and press his fingers to the wound at the same time.

Speaking from such a height was strange. I crouched down next to him.

"Why would you have to answer the door?" I asked, trying not to look at the blood now marring the tiles. "Where's Anne?"

"I gave her the day off. Here, give me your hand."

I opened my mouth to protest but he had already grabbed my wrist and pressed my palm to the arch of his eyebrow. I swallowed hard. His forehead was wet and sticky with his own blood, and my nostrils were now full of the tepid, coppery smell of it.

"She came back from the garden looking as if she'd been wrestling with a Devil's Snare," Potter went on. "I thought she deserved a little rest. I wasn't expecting you so soon, by the way."

"The other guests left to go to the theatre," I replied, my mind elsewhere. A trickle of blood slid down my wrist.

"Keep pressure on the cut," he said. "As soon as I can find and mend those blasted glasses, I'll take care of it—though if you had a mirror, it would help, it's kinda hard to fix my own face…"

"I—I have a mirror—upstairs. Lali could…"

"Nah, don't bother. Just keep pressing your hand to the cut, I can't see anything through all that blood."

Wiping his eye and face with one hand, he groped around the floor for another few seconds until he found his glasses; he touched them to the tip of his wand and placed them back on his nose, wriggling the arms so they slid under my hand and wrist.

"I don't suppose you know any healing charm?" he sighed. "That would save me the trouble of aiming at my own eyebrow."

I shook my head, lips tightly shut, eyes diverted to the next wall.

There was a silence. Then his fingers closed over my wrist and gently pulled my hand away from his face. The air felt cold on the coagulating blood that covered my palm.

"Not fond of the sight of blood, are you?" he said with uncharacteristic kindness.

I inhaled deeply through my mouth to steady myself.

"I'm fine," I said.

"You're whiter than the tiles. Not that they're so white, now, come to think of it—I repainted them just fine—"

"Don't, please," I whispered in a very, very low voice.

He snorted, a derisive sound—but not quite as derisive as I expected.

"_Scourgify. _Here you go, the tiles are clear. I don't dear use this spell on your hand though—it might skin you. You'll have to make it to the bathroom."

"I don't care about dried blood," I managed to utter through gritted teeth. "Just stop the bleeding."

"I'd like to see you try aiming your wand at your own face," he countered. "Why don't you do it? The word's _episkey._"

"I _know_ that."

My wand was still clenched tightly in my right hand. I raised it and glanced at James Potter—he was observing me with a kind of amusement on his face; to my surprise, it was an expression devoid of malice.

I pointed the wand at his eyebrow, said the word, and was immensely relieved to see the bleeding stop at once. Coagulated blood closed the gaping cut, but it was not healed: the slightest impact would reopen it.

"Not bad," Potter commented.

"We should go clean up, now," I said hastily, starting to rise.

But he seized my arm around the elbow and gently pulled me back to the floor. "I think I might be a little wobbly from you throwing a door in my face," he said. "And you don't look so well either. We'd better stay here for a minute or two."

I did not object. The queasiness was starting to ease, but I did not trust my legs to support my weight. I sat on the floor quite close to him. My ears were full of whistling and whooshing sounds, which I wasn't sure came from the wind rushing through an open window or from my own blood running through my skull.

"Nice and quiet," murmured Potter. I saw him glance furtively to the glassy doors leading into the garden, then back to me.

"I'm fine," I said again.

A tense silence settled as we sat there side by side, uncomfortable and embarrassed, on the cold tiles of the high-ceilinged hall. A floorboard creaked in a room upstairs. A window slammed shut somewhere in the house, taken in a gust of air.

"How did you like Malfoy manor?" James Potter asked point-blank.

I threw at him a shifty, sideways look, amazed that he would know and remember—much less care about—my whereabouts of the day. When I had left the house, after another lunch he'd spent locked up in his room, I had been convinced he would not even notice my absence.

"It's… impressive. Grandiose," I said. "And Narcissa is a charming hostess."

He smirked. "Of course. You're awfully at ease with that sort of people; looks like you didn't have much fun when you were a kid, did you?"

His callous remark stung. Absurdly sitting on the floor next to a man who had blood all over his face and clothes, unsettled by his newfound loquacity, I had let my guard down and was reacting a lot more instinctively than usual. At any rate I felt a hot surge of indignation at the disbelief in his voice, directed at a dead woman.

"You're right," I snapped. "It was very dull and painful to be brought up by my parents. Thank God they died, and I got married. I am having the time of my _life._"

I stopped, shocking myself with the venom I was spitting. In the ringing silence that followed it seemed to me the entire house was straining its ears for James Potter's reaction. I would have gladly left him there, now, to slouch on the floor on his own, in an attempt to save my dignity—but the way we sat, I couldn't get up without brushing against him or first crawling away from him. I stared moodily at the opposite wall with tightly closed lips and stayed put.

"That wasn't what I meant."

I did not unclench my teeth.

"I didn't even know you were an orphan. Though I suppose I should've guessed. I'm sorry if I offended you."

"Why are you saying you should have guessed?" I blurted out, unable to stay quiet. "Do I look like a… an abandoned puppy? Is that it?"

"No. It's because of Lestrange."

I turned my head to look at him. His eyes wandered around the hall, unfocused, but never turning to me, as he went on, "Whenever Lestrange wants something to happen, he makes sure all the odds are in his favour. He found ways of pressuring me into doing pretty much anything he asks. I suppose it's the same for you: maybe, if you had parents to defend you, you wouldn't be there."

"That's me. The defenceless _schoolgirl,_" I muttered through gritted teeth.

This time he planted his eyes into mine. His full attention was on me, and something like interest stole over his blood-marred features.

"Well," he said, "if that's really how you define yourself, Lestrange must be very happy he picked you."

And he said it calmly, neutrally, without a trace of harshness or scorn. He was scrutinising me with his brow furrowed, as though seeing me for the first time—as though I was an incongruous, but interesting object he was attempting to decipher. Suddenly ill-at-ease, trying to avoid his gaze as much as to regain some composure, I looked away and shut my eyes.

Potter might have misinterpreted my attitude: be that as it may, his hand came up to rest against the back of my neck. His thumb and middle fingers dug into the shifting tendons on either side, firmly, as though he was intending to keep me erect by the sole pressure of these two fingers on my neck.

His voice drifted to me through my shut eyelids. "Feeling dizzy again?"

It was easier to just nod, so I did. I _was_ a little light-headed, to tell the truth.

"Just don't pass out on me, okay? You're still kind of pale."

The contact of his fingers disrupted my concentration, as it had done during dinner at the Lestranges'; I desperately tried to focus on the small noises of the falling night, rather than on the unusual presence besides me. The wind had ceased. The rain was no longer pit-patting on the upstairs windows. There was another creaking noise coming from the first floor, a groaning of badly-oiled hinges—a window had probably been left open.

Then silence fell. The house lay in waiting.

I opened my eyes.

"All right now?" asked Potter, with something like relief in his voice. "Can you stand up?"

I couldn't find words to answer, couldn't even look in his direction, ashamed as I was of my weakness; I merely shrugged.

"Excellent."

He got to his feet with unexpected promptitude, for a man who had claimed to be 'wobbly' not five minutes earlier. He pulled me up, paused for a second, then removed from my shoulders the sodden cloak that I had never had the chance to take off. I watched him as he walked up to the coat stand and hung my cloak on a lower peg. Blood still stained the side of his face and neck, and his hair was glued with it.

"Sorry," I said awkwardly. "About the door."

He turned to me, his intact eyebrow raised. "I thought you'd never spit it out," he said. "Forget it. Come on, we both need a good long shower."

And with sudden hurriedness he took my arm again to lead me upstairs, walking a step behind me rather than fleeing up the stairs as he usually did, pushing me gently every time I halted, every time I faltered. When I paused at the top of the stairs to look back at the entrance hall, he told me, in a mild voice, that if I did not mind he would like to wash up sometime before nightfall.

It was too late, though. I had already glimpsed a shadow fleeing across my garden, through the glass panes of the terrace doors.

I said nothing and let my husband lead me away from the hall.


End file.
